Wolf Girl
by Tribi
Summary: Stiles Stilinski is alone in the woods working on her AP Bio project when she makes a furry friend.
1. Chapter 1

_These are the first words I'm writing in my Wolf Girl Journal, or maybe I should call it the AP Bio Journal That's Totally Going to Get Me into Berkeley. Potato, potato. (Note to self: that joke looks stupid written down.) (Note to self: even writing longhand it's hard to stay on topic.)_

"Shit," grumbled Stiles as she wiped mud off her hiking boots. Of course she understood that hiking boots were meant to get muddy but artistically muddy, pretty little splatters that contrasted with her red laces –not big ugly smears of gray gunk that made it look like she had stepped on a rotting trout or something, something shit-like. She picked up a stick to try and scrape more mud off. It looked pretty hopeless and also she was going to step in the mud again on her way back to where her Jeep was parked but writing in the journal was boring at the moment. She had a sick sort of feeling in her stomach that she had screwed the whole journal concept up by writing dumb things already on the first page. Computers were better because you could delete and get the fresh white page back again.

AP Bio was like a big complicated lover that she was constantly in love and hate with. Kind of like her life she supposed. Stiles tossed away her stick and leaned back against the tree to get comfortable and question every decision in her life that had led her to this point. Her mother died, right off that was the most important thing anyone needed to know about Stiles. Her mother was smart and beautiful and awesome and after she tucked little Stiles in every night she climbed a ladder to hang up the moon. Stiles' dad would agree with her, under oath if necessary. These were the facts. Her mother died when she was twelve and it was hard. Twelve is when you need a mom the most because your body starts freaking out and you don't know what's happening and that was right when her mom died. It was super hard. Stiles' kind of failed puberty because of it, she was sort of catching up now maybe, but who really knew. Stiles tried to surround herself with loving and affirming friends; friends who wouldn't notice that she had the wrong kind of mud on her hiking boots.

And although she didn't know squat about make-up or hair or least of all fashion, it was usually okay because Stiles was smart. There wasn't exactly a death bed promise but Stiles hadn't scored lower than an A- on anything since her mother died. It was something, something she could actually do. Something she was sure would have made her mom proud. Nothing but A minuses until this year that was, AP Bio was kicking her ass. Maybe her imminent B, or possibly C since Mr. Booth had no sense of humor whatsoever, was the reason she was floundering around in the woods worrying about mud on her shoes. Because now that she was apparently not a girl genius anymore maybe she should find a pretty face to fall back on. Stiles sighed hugely and wrapped her arms tighter around her legs, this was probably a good place to cry and it wasn't like she had mascara that might run or anything, but, but she didn't want to cry because of Mr. Booth. She didn't want to question her whole life because of Mr. Booth. And god damn if he was going to send her GPA into the crapper. So, she scrubbed her cheeks for a minute and took a deep breath, picking her journal back up again and scrabbling around in the leaves for her pen.

_I went to the woods to live deliberately and not when it came time to leave for college realize that I had not seen them._

The note made her smile at least, the project was to do some sort of field study and Stiles had gone kind of literal with her idea when she picked out this spot in the woods. This tree and the little downward slope to a happy little brook and the killer view out towards the east, this bit of woods, and she was going to come every day as best she could and just study it. Note any tracks she saw, take an inventory of the biodiversity, maybe run a few water samples. Study the field, yeah, Mr. Booth wasn't impressed with the word play but for some reason instead of changing her mind Stiles just dug her heels in deeper. Something about the project idea felt really right to her. Like it was important that she know this place and she would regret choosing any other project. She couldn't even imagine choosing any other tree, which was weird but stubborn ran in her family.

She stood up and brushed the leaves off her behind. She had a tape measure in her backpack and some topo maps; it was time to map out her kingdom.

The young wolf watched the girl curiously. He had been loping around in the woods like he did every day when he got thirsty and trotted down to the stream for a drink. Well, not straight to the stream; he paused inside the thick line of bushes to look around before he burst out into the open. Nothing had ever hunted him in the woods but instincts went deeper than experience, and it was from his safe spot in the bushes that he saw the girl. The word girl rolled around in his head and he dropped down to his belly so he could study her closer.

She was picking at her boots with a stick, now she was throwing the stick and he gave a little twitch in the direction the stick flew as thoughts of chasing it danced. But the girl wasn't even watching to see where it landed; now she was sad. The wolf's tail thumped the ground, she was really sad and he could almost taste what her tears would be like if he was close enough to lick them away. But he didn't move, not when she stopped crying, not until she started marching around with the loud tape measure thing and even then not until she came too close to his bushes. There were other streams.

The wolf did go back later though; he even found the stick and carried it back to the tree she had sat beneath. Which was stupid and he didn't know why he did that. He didn't know why he spent so long sniffing around the tree either. He even curled up and laid in the exact spot where she had cried, it made him feel sad too though so he got up and went back to his den.

Stiles had no woods sense, was that the name for it? She wasn't a tracker, in fact it was pretty brave of her to think she could find her tree again. There was no cell signal, which sucked, but she had taken about a hundred pictures so she was reasonably sure this was the right spot. And hey, her stick was here so it was totally the right spot, except she sort of remembered chucking the stick. That was weird.

Stiles was a little flustered but there was a plan for the day so she focused. She had created a map of the field and today she was taping one leaf from each tree into her journal so she could look them up at home and add the data to her map.

Deciding on clockwise Stiles walked up to the first tree and grabbed a leaf, she jammed it into the binding and added a few notes about the bark.

The wolf was so mystified by her behavior that he forgot to slink away when she came close. He froze and hunkered down in the dirt and leaves quivering. The girl didn't seem to notice him except she was talking, was she talking to him or did she just naturally talk a lot? The wolf closed his eyes as the words washed over him and hoped she might come back again.

"Stiles, why does your journal say Wolf Girl?" Asked Allison at lunch the next day. "It seems a little, um, whimsical for Mr. Booth."

"I know," sighed Stiles. "I'm probably going to have to rewrite the whole thing before I turn it in, or maybe I should just keep two?"

" That might be safer, he will take off points for this. I mean it's cute but there aren't any wolves in Beacon Hills."

Scott choked on his sandwich as Stiles seemed to inflate next to him. Both girls paused to look at him red-faced and tearing. "Stiles," he gasped, "I'll tell her, you have class in a few minutes."

Stiles deflated again and offered Scott her water bottle. He took a swig and then hugged her awkwardly around the waist as she stood up and gathered her things.

It wasn't unusual for Scott and Stiles to be bumping into each other or doing bro hugs during the day, the way Scott was rubbing his cheek on her hip was strangely intimate but Allison ignored it. Scott's had given her puppy eyes from the minute she moved to town and it freaked her out for a while because of course she assumed they were a couple.

Lydia Martin had assured her they weren't a couple, she didn't seem too impressed with either of them but Allison found herself looking forward to Scott's sweet smiles and big brown eyes each day. And eventually Stiles had pushed Scott into her locker so he had to stammer out a hello. Lydia had rolled her eyes and said something critical about Stiles' hair while the world kept turning.

Allison never asked Scott what the bond between him and Stiles was exactly, it seemed personal or painful or something and she decided it was too early in their relationship to ask. Apparently the bond had to do with wolves, maybe?

After school Stiles had her most successful trip ever to the field. She parked her Jeep and stomped straight to her tree, it was as automatic as going home and throwing herself onto her bed. "Are you here?" She called to the bushes down by the creek, maybe they moved, maybe she just wanted them to. "I took like a hundred high definition pictures here that first day you know. I saw your furry little ears."

The wolf who was hiding in the bushes flattened back his furry little ears. He whined too but the girl was talking again and didn't hear him.

"It's cool, I understand the shy thing and I know that it can take a while to warm up to me. Maybe you aren't even here today, but whatever I talk to myself all the time anyway.

So this girl, Allison, you would like her she's really nice, but she saw my journal. You know the book I write in whenever I come here," Stiles held up the book in the direction of the bushes because visual aids were important. "So I've been carrying this thing everywhere and I doodle sometimes and my brain is always going so I write in it a lot and on the cover I wrote _Wolf Girl_."

Stiles stopped talking to the bushes then, she had dropped her visual aid and was crying into her knees again. The wolf whined and crawled out of the bushes on his belly. His tail made a swish swish noise in the dry leaves and when Stiles looked up at him her smile was like the sun breaking out of clouds.

Scott and Allison were in her car parked on the edge of town where the view was pretty nice. They were both actually staring at the trees while Scott gathered his words. Finally he began.

"The Stilinskis moved to Beacon Hills because of the preserve. Stiles's mom was a wildlife biologist, her dad used to be a park ranger and that's how they met. Now he's the sheriff." Scott added unnecessarily but Allison let him proceed at his own pace.

Her mom and my mom were friends and my dad is in law enforcement like the sheriff so you know they got together a lot. Stiles was annoying of course but she was smart and funny and most of the time when I whined about going to their house it was just because I thought I should be whining.

And then my parent's marriage started falling apart and I would really fight going over to the Stilinskis because it hurt to see them all together and happy, I was so miserable and jealous. That was a pretty shitty thing to do to my mother though because Mrs. Stilinski was like her best friend so of course she needed her then.

And then Mrs. Stilinski got cancer and was really sick for months and months. Right after I had wished that their perfect family would stop being so perfect. And you know my mom's a nurse so when Stiles tried to move in to the hospital to be with her mom my mom would see her and drag her over to our house.

So I guess that's how we became so close, our worlds crashed at the same time."

"How old were you guys?" Asked Allison softly.

"We were twelve that summer."

"It must have been really hard, I'm glad you had each other."

"And Uncle Mario, Uncle Mario got us through a lot of sad lonely days."

"Is Uncle Mario your uncle or Stiles's?" Asked Allison with an adorable wrinkle between her eyes.

"He's everybody's uncle Allison. We played an insane amount of Mario Kart that summer."

Allison's adorable wrinkle looked a little angry.

"Wolf girl?" She finally asked as she put the car in gear to head back to town.

"Oh, her mom, the wildlife biologist, swore that Stiles's eyes are the exact color of a wolf's. She wasn't wrong, I saw a wolf at the San Diego Zoo and it stared at me, it felt exactly like when Stiles is waiting for me to catch up to her.

Her mom called her Wolf Girl."

"Wow," breathed Stiles softly as she watched the wolf creep out of the bushes and towards her. "Aren't you totally cool and awesome looking? What'cha doing in the woods all alone though puppy?"

The wolf didn't snarl at her question but his lip curled in a displeased manner.

Rather than being the slightest bit intimidated Stiles just smiled brighter, "don't like being called a puppy huh? Do you think if I moved really super super slowly I could get my phone out and take a few hundred pictures of you before you sneak off again?" asked Stiles as she slowly pulled out her phone.

The next day at lunch neither Lydia nor Allison was impressed with the pictures that Stiles had printed of a black dog laying in some bushes. "Are you going to put up some Found Dog posters around town?" asked Lydia in a tone that showed she knew she was being mean.

"That's cute," replied Stiles in a tone that showed she didn't think it was the slightest bit cute, "but see the deep furring in the ears, I don't think it's a dog."

The ears were in fact deeply furred and Allison had no idea what that meant, but as the new girl and as some sort of bridge between apparent mortal enemies she decided to mitigate the fray, "maybe it's a hybrid that got loose?"

Lydia and Stiles shared a surprised look and then, shockingly, both of their eyes started to crease up into a shared smirk. "Lobo," sighed Lydia as they started to giggle.

"Lobo?" asked Allison trying to keep up.

This week, by chance, Lydia and Jackson were not going out, if it had been last Tuesday she might have defended the memory of Lobo, maybe. "Once upon a time Jackson decided that having a pet wolf would be cool,"

"And bad ass," added Stiles.

Lydia nodded, "so he talked his parents into buying him a wolf hybrid, and he named it Lobo. Of course."

Stiles chuckled and Allison just sort of gaped.

"Shockingly, Lobo turned out to be a little much for Jackson," continued Lydia.

"What was it, sixteen stitches?" asked Stiles still chuckling.

"At least you didn't have to help him change the bandage or pretend to be sympathetic when he told the story a hundred times."

"No, but it was my dad that they called to come shoot the poor thing." Stiles stopped laughing.

"Did he?" asked Allison looking concerned for poor Lobo.

"No, he felt too much sympathy for anything that had been a pet of Jackson's. He brought it home for a couple nights and then Dr. Deaton, the vet, helped us find a rescue organization that found him a permanent home."

"Did Lobo behave in your house?" asked Allison.

"Yeah, he was an okay beast. Not super cuddly at first but we understood his body language pretty well so it was a chill visit."

"Didn't you want to keep him?" asked Allison and Lydia stopped whatever she was doing to look at Stiles intently, as if this was an aspect of the Lobo story she had never considered before.

"I guess I sort of did, he was cool looking and all that but he had just given Jackson sixteen stitches so my Dad didn't really think it would be a good idea. I mean, he didn't think Lobo was super dangerous or he wouldn't have brought him home but he didn't want to rub it in the Whittemore's face that it was Jackson and not the dog. We made sure he went to a good home though."

"Well, I guess you know better than I do what a hybrid looks like," admitted Allison glancing at Stiles' picture again.

"I still think it looks Lobo-ish," said Lydia, "but I don't remember much about Lobo and I haven't studied wolves at all."

Stiles looked at her picture again, "I will say that it makes no sense at all for one wolf to be alone in our woods. And he was super friendly, well, you know, for a wild animal, so maybe he is a lost pet."

"I googled you," Stiles informed the bushes near the brook. A nose peaked out of them and pointed in her direction; it was swiftly followed by a face and two paws. "There are no lost animals matching your description for two hundred miles, I even asked my friend who words at the local vet's office. He offered to let me borrow their microchip scanner, it's battery powered and everything, but I told him we weren't at that stage in our relationship yet. You know the way I sit very still here and you hide in the bushes there, it isn't really conducive to me scanning your body. That's a bit intimate for us don't you think?"

The wolf seemed to blink at her, Stiles nodded back. She was supposed to be doing more cataloging today, either shrubs or the water plants, but she didn't want to startle the wolf by moving around. Plus, it wasn't like biology was her only homework, or even like this was her only biology homework. With another look at the wolf Stiles pulled out her math homework and hoped she could get some of it done.

It was peaceful there in the woods and she was miles away from her usual distractions so Stiles actually got a ton of homework done. Her bottom was numb and it had become alarmingly dark but all in all she considered it an achievement, especially when she glanced around and saw the wolf laying about halfway between his usual bush and her usual tree. His head was resting on his paws and he looked a little forlorn and bored. Stiles smiled and felt bad for not talking out loud more during her homework, she was pretty sure she muttered a bunch though.

Slowly she reached for her backpack and dug through until she found a granola bar, a crushed and sorry looking granola bar, but a wolf shouldn't care. The wolf didn't seem alarmed at all as she crinkled the foil wrapper trying to open it, instead his tail was thumping again and he was on full alert. "You have totally been around people before haven't you?" she asked the wolf. "You know this is a cookie don't you, cookie, cookie, who's a good boy?" The tail thumped some more but the wolf didn't get up and dance around like Lobo would have.

"I can respect your dignity brother," praised Stiles as she broke the bar in half and tossed a chunk to the wolf. The wolf caught it neatly moving only his head and swallowed with a swipe of his long pink tongue. There had been a lot of teeth glinting in the dusk when he opened his mouth. Stiles threw him the other half too.

Standing up was a little comical because her butt was so sore but she managed, she stretched out her shoulders too because the ground just was not ergonomic and started the long trudge in the half dark back to her Jeep.

The sheriff was not pleased that Stiles didn't get home until 6:45 that night, he didn't even care that she had done so much of her homework. Well, maybe he was a little impressed. Mostly though he was suspicious, "why did you sit in the woods to do your homework?" he asked. Bingo, he thought to himself as she squirmed uncomfortably and he watched as she seemed to try out different lies in her head. He sighed loudly and disappointedly so Stiles quickly chose her answer.

"There's a critter in the bushes and I thought that if I sat still and quiet it might get used to me and come out," she replied.

"What sort of critter?" asked the sheriff knowing she would have said bunny if she thought it was a bunny so clearly it was something far more dangerous than a bunny.

"Maybe a stray dog, but I checked with Scott and on Craigslist and there aren't any reports of missing dogs that sound like this one."

"So you've seen it? Do you have pictures?" asked the sheriff with infinite patience. Cops made the best fathers he decided again.

Stiles huffed a little and pulled out her phone, she flipped through the photos and the sheriff knew she was looking for the safest looking one, and not the clearest. Whatever, once she handed him the phone he was going to look through ALL the pictures anyway.

He swiped left, and right, for a few minutes and then asked Stiles what sort of zooming abilities her camera had and made her show him in the backyard about how far away the slavering death beast usually was from her.

"That was fun," commented Stiles as they trooped back into the house. Her dad was in full sheriff mode, his hand was drifting towards their kitchen phone and she was sure that he intended to call a game warden or something. Then he lifted a finger towards her and she was sure he was going to ask if she could switch to another field, her reply would be a firm no, not after all that mapping work and looking up sixteen different trees. He could see that answer in the set of her shoulders so instead he tugged her down the hall to his office.

In his office he pulled out his big jingly ring of sheriff keys and stalked over to his gun cabinet. Stiles perked up a little bit and walked over to stand next to him.

"Okay, today is Thursday, right?"

Stiles nodded yes.

"Do you need to go back there tomorrow?" he asked as he pulled out a small pistol and checked the chamber.

"It would be good since I didn't do any field work today, just homework. But I should have a lot of time over the weekend to catch up."

"Okay, how about tomorrow night we eat a quick dinner and then head over to the firing range to get some of the rust off of you and then you can bring this with you when you go to the field over the weekend?" He handed Stiles the small Walther P22 and she ran her hands over it remembering.

They weren't a wack-o survivalist family but her dad was the sheriff so yeah, he taught her how to shoot when she was younger. It was something they could do together. She was never really awesome at it though and once she got her drivers license they sort of stopped going, now she couldn't remember the last time.

"Sounds good but I have to say, I'm not sure a 22 will even make it through that guy's fur."

"If the noise doesn't scare it into the next county you'd better be good enough to make a head shot then."

Stiles gave her father a dubious look and then glanced pointedly at his much bigger magnum; he took back the Walther and put it in the cabinet before locking it all up again.

"So what's up with you this rocking Friday night?" Allison asked Stiles because she thought she was being nice and friendly and she didn't realize that if Stiles wasn't with Scott she was home alone playing video games or surfing the internet.

Scott opened his mouth, to say what -he had no idea but Stiles was already answering, "My dad and I are going to the firing range, that's pretty rocking isn't it?"

"Oh, I didn't know you guys did that, but of course he is the sheriff. I love shooting, do you have room for one more?" she looked at Scott who's mouth was still open, "or maybe two?"

"Scotty doesn't like the firing range cuz the gunpowder messes with his asthma, but yeah, you can come too."

Scott looked sad now because he wasn't looking forward to a Friday night home alone playing video games or surfing the internet.

"Do you and your dad go often?" asked Allison.

"We used to," replied Stiles, "but we kind of got out of the habit. Yesterday he found out about the wolf dog at my field site so now he wants me to pack heat when I go there, hence the refresher."

"Oh, what kind of heat? Did you know that my daddy is a licensed firearms dealer?"

"I was not aware, wow, we have things in common I guess." Stiles looked mildly shocked. Like it had never occurred to her before that there could be a girl that she would have things in common with.

Scott smiled at her, he always took a special pleasure in other people learning how cool his best friend was. Not that he was forgiving her so quickly for the asthma crack, true as it was. Even if he wanted to go shooting again the sheriff would never let him, it wasn't worth pissing off his mother.

Stiles seemed to snap out of her shock and gave Scott a big smile, "we're going early, you'll still have time for whatever afterwards. I could pick you up at six?"

That sounded good to Allison and there was a lot of smiling and talk of calibers while Scott just looked pleased with the world, if not a little betrayed by his Friday night.

On Saturday morning Stiles was in her field bright and early. Her dad had apparently decided that he spent enough time with her on Friday night, it gave him leave to go fishing. Stiles didn't really mind, her dad needed to do things besides work and be home. Everyone needed other things to do and new places to go, that was why she was sitting in her field again.

She had stopped for a few things on her way so she was digging into a bag and pulling out a donut when the bushes moved and a familiar face popped out. "Hey, want a donut?" Stiles asked.

The wolf trotted over to her and sat down about ten feet away, Stiles flipped a donut to him and he caught it easily, gulping it down in a few bites.

"Sure, just hork it down and then make a sad face at my donut because yours is gone. I know your type," Stiles admonished.

The wolf laid down and rested his huge head on his front paws, it was a very good sad face. She gave him a tiny piece of her donut and he smiled at her.

After breakfast Stiles decided to get back to work on her cataloging and although she couldn't help chatting with the wolf while she worked she tried not to make eye contact with him or notice how he follower her around closer and closer. So close that by the time she took a break for lunch he was stretched out close enough to touch.

There was a second peanut butter and jelly sandwich just for him and Stiles greatly enjoyed the faces he made as he tried to get the bread and peanut butter goop unstuck from his mouth. Eventually the wolf got up and went to drink from the stream, when he came back he curled up next to her and this time he was touching. He stayed very still while she reached out and patted his head, until she decided he probably wasn't going to eat her and then she really started rubbing the spot behind his ears. He moved to rest his head on her thigh and his eyes closed.

The girl's voice washed over him and the wolf wondered if he would get tired of it. He hadn't heard someone talk to him in a long time, he wasn't sure how long exactly but it felt good now. It felt like a stream that was rinsing the dust off of his coat leaving him brighter and more alert, except not exactly because he was starting to doze off now.

Eventually Stiles realized she couldn't spend the whole day at her field. Although it might be cool to dig out the little tent and spend a whole night here, she could bring a video camera with night vision and tape what happened down by the stream at night. While she gathered up her things she wondered if Matt would let her borrow his camera, probably not –he was kind of a jerk.

The wolf felt distressed that she was leaving but he didn't whine. He wasn't sure why he wasn't whining but it seemed important. He trotted behind her back to the Jeep and it became harder not to whine. Then, when she pulled away he didn't chase the car. He had to dig his nails into the dirt road, but he didn't chase her. After all, she said she would be back.

The next week Stiles learned to set an alarm so she could leave the field in time to beat her father home from work. The sheriff noticed that her Jeep was often still ticking when he pulled in next to it but Stiles was happy and she was getting a lot of her homework done earlier than she ever had before. Of course getting all her homework done early and efficiently in the woods with no distractions was too good to last, on Thursday the wolf pouted when she pulled out her textbooks.

He actually grabbed a corner of her trig book and tried to tug it out of her hands. When she looked up at him he danced a little bit away from her and wagged his tail, then he ran a little farther and looked back at her over his shoulder.

"Walkies?" she asked. "Are you bored of watching me sit here now? Do you want to go on a walkie?"

The wolf barked, which sort of startled both of them because he was usually really quiet, and wagged his tail.

Stiles shoved her trig book back in her backpack. She saw the pistol and ignored it, following the wolf off into the woods. She wished that she hadn't promised her father she would bring the stupid thing every day, it meant she had to stop at home after school and pick it up but she usually grabbed a snack for Mr. Wolf so it wasn't too annoying. The thought of actually taking it out of her backpack made her feel sick to her stomach, it wouldn't even be loaded except she was pretty sure her dad was planning a pop inspection. Like one day he would have the cruiser parked next to her Jeep and he would demand to see the pistol and check if it was loaded, she could totally imagine him doing that. She hoped that Mr. Wolf would have the good sense to hide and not let himself be seen by her dad, especially not be seen leaning against her legs like a cat.

By the time Stiles had worked through that scenario a few times, what she would say, how Mr. Wolf would act, by the time she finally looked around beyond the jaunty tail that she was following Stiles felt a swooping horrifying sense of vertigo. She had no idea where she was.

Stiles froze and then lurched against a tree with a gasp. Mr. Wolf stopped immediately and scrambled over to her side. Stiles slid down the tree and buried her head between her knees. The wolf whined and scratched at her arm which was wrapped over her head.

It felt like forever to the wolf but finally the girl seemed to be able to lift her head again and look at him. Her face was wet with tears and her heart was still pounding. "Sorry boy," she said softly, "did I tell you that I get panic attacks? Hey, I get panic attacks. Especially when I suddenly notice that I'm totally lost in the woods."

The wolf cocked his head at her, lost? She thought she was lost? He sniffed at her and she laughed a little. It sounded wet to him and he longed to lick her face but he didn't.

Finally she stood up and the wolf turned around back the way they had come, Stiles smiled at him, "so we're not lost forever in the woods?" The wolf seemed to sigh before he carefully and slowly led her back to the tree where her backpack was. Stiles dug through for her water bottle and took a long drink. She put the water bottle back and took out her phone then turned back to the wolf, "okay, let's try this again. And I'll try to have a little more faith in you and your uncanny knowledge of the English language." The wolf looked at her and then quickly looked away, as if he was trying to pretend he didn't understand.

This trip Stiles tried to pay attention more and she noticed that the wolf glanced back more often, a 'still good?' look on his face. Stiles almost wondered if it was worth all this worry just to go for a walk but then they broke through the trees and she saw the gorgeous view the wolf had led her to. It was later than she thought and the sun was stretched far across the horizon making long shadows and warming up the rocks they were standing on.

"This is awesome," said Stiles. "Did your owner bring you here or something? Cuz it's kind of random for a weirdly tame and lucid wild animal to lead me to a place like this, unless I'm a Disney Princess or something and I don't think I am."

The wolf didn't make eye contact, he just stretched out and looked off majestically into the distance. When Stiles' alarm went off he led her back.

The next night was Friday of course and her dad did meet her at the Jeep with the casual suggestion of heading to the firing range together again. Mr. Wolf hid and wasn't seen.

Stiles was unusually perturbed that night while she thought about Mr. Wolf's recent behavior. On the one hand she was becoming really attached to the creature, to his quiet presence and the way he would look at her after she said certain things. It really was like he understood English. And she still hadn't figured out if he was a dog or a wolf or a hybrid, not that it mattered a lot to her -she felt safe either way, but maybe figuring that out would help her with the rest, with how he seemed to listen to her, with how a stray wolf dog thing was becoming her best friend. She tossed and turned in her bed for a long time thinking.

They had blown off grocery shopping last Saturday to pursue other interests so it was now dire that they go. And by the time Stiles and her dad got home it was raining and Scott was bored so she stayed home and played video games with him. "Allison is doing some family thing this weekend, her aunt and her grandfather came to visit. I don't know why it's all weekend, I get sick of my relatives after one dinner."

"I don't, I love your grandparents."

"Yeah, but your own make you crazy; that's my point, that your own family needs to be taken in small doses."

"It's just because my grandmother bursts into tears every time she lays eyes on me; that would be a buzz kill for anyone."

Scott sighed because it was true and he hadn't meant to bring it up. The sheriff would kill him if he found out. Stiles looked a lot like her mother, too much for Stiles to handle actually so she went out of her way to keep her hair too short and her clothes too androgynous. Stiles' grandmother felt like it was a desecration or something and would bring dresses and make up and all that stuff and they would fight and cry. Everyone hoped that someday it would get better but no one was sure how to get there.

He peered carefully at Stiles out of the corner of his eye, she seemed a little glassier than usual but nothing he couldn't fix. With a mischievous grin he shot her in the back, in the video game.

It rained all night and was still drizzly the next morning. Stiles had so many pagesof notes in her bio journal that she started transferring things to her wall, unfortunately it was the unofficial journal. The journal that she had started on the first day was the one she wrote in all the time, stories about Mr. Wolf and her usual babble. The journal that she was going to turn in at the end of next month had clinical forced observations that she dutifully wrote out every day. She did it first thing when she got to the field to get it over with and then buried that journal under the gun somewhere.

Her real journal, the one with her actual thoughts in it, had six new pages of notes on how to tell a hybrid dog from a real wolf. Stuck on her wall were enlargements of the photos she had taken of Mr. Wolf supporting the different differences. His ears were fuzzed out in a wolfy manner. His eyes were ambiguous, wolves were supposed to have yellow/brown eyes and Mr. Wolf was brown/green –sometimes kind of blue. He was smart enough to be a wolf but his behavior wasn't exactly right.

One thing that she wasn't sure about was if Mr. Wolf single tracked or walked like a dog, but that was something she could check out today. The ground was sure to be muddy and she could just find some tracks and take a picture. Easy peasy. Her dad had gone in to the office, because he was the sheriff and went in pretty much every day, so she wrote a quick note and grabbed her pack.

The ground was in fact really muddy; her boots were miles beyond artistically dirtied. And her palms were scraped up from slipping and grabbing trees to save herself, and yet Stiles persevered. There are a lot of weird statistics about how much more likely you are to get into a car accident near your house. Is it because you're usually near your house –having just left it or on your way back to it, or is it because you get used to your own neighborhood and don't pay as much attention as you should? For Stiles it was definitely a lack of paying attention.

She was walking along her usual path and grabbing on to a root to help her slide down a little to her usual tree when suddenly the root was moving right along with her, it felt like the whole world was moving with her and she slid down the embankment into the rocks and trees and pricker bushes below.

The wolf was snug in his little den, he had gone out briefly the day before to see if the girl was going to come or not and he was kind of relieved that she hadn't. Sitting in the rain and watching her didn't seem like fun, and yet if she had come to the field he was sure he would have sat and watched her. He was sure he wouldn't be able to just leave her there unwatched. The thought made his belly twist strangely.

The rain was lighter today so maybe she would come. He thought he heard her Jeep just then, sometimes he could hear it from his den. But he wasn't sure if he really heard it or was just thinking about hearing it and tricked himself. The wolf shook his head and decided to trot over to the field anyway, his belly also twisted when he thought about not going to check.

He was almost to the field when he heard the cracking and a rushing noise. The wolf himself had certainly never caused a mudslide but sometimes a deer did, or sometimes they just happened all on their own. He knew that it wasn't a deer who had caused this one and he ran like his tail was on fire.

The girl was down near the creek, her eyes were closed and she wasn't moving. The wolf snuffled her frantically and licked some of the mud away from her face, she still didn't move. He picked up his paw but he didn't want to scratch her. He could hear her heart beating and he could see her chest rising and falling. The wolf whined and paced in front of her.

Some of the stuff that had slid down the hill with Stiles was clogging up the brook and the wolf became aware of water rising up his legs. He needed to get the girl away from here, he needed to get her somewhere warm and dry and maybe use her phone to call 911 or something. He needed to.

Suddenly Mr. Wolf was gone and Derek was shivering as he stood there naked for the first time in a long time. He hoped that the girl didn't wake up now. In his human form he was able to think better and he saw that she looked mostly unhurt, at least none of her limbs were twisted at strange angles. He found a pretty big bump on her head when he checked though. His fingers felt strange as he ran them over her body, but he ignored it for now. Finally he was satisfied that he wouldn't hurt her worse if he tried to pick her up, and also the water had risen another few inches. Carefully he worked one arm under her knees and the other under her back; carefully he rose to his feet. Very carefully since he hadn't stood like this in a long time, and when it seemed safe enough he cradled her to his chest and looked around for the best path back to her Jeep.

She felt good in his arms, he couldn't stop thinking about how good. Even covered in mud and cold as she was, the weight felt right and the little puffs of air against his neck steadied him. He finally reached her Jeep and shifted her so that she was resting more against his shoulder and he could open the back door. It seemed very warm and dry and clean inside the little car. He had to half climb in to get her stretched out comfortably on the seat, well as best he could. In the little space behind the seat he found a cozy polar fleece blanket that he tucked around her.

And then he stood there, he wanted to climb in too but not naked and human like this. He wanted to climb in as the wolf and warm her up with his thick fur, clean off more of her face. He hesitated; if he stayed he would be here when she woke up and wondered how she had gotten back to her car. But if he was the wolf he wouldn't have to answer any of her questions.

Derek climbed in the backseat and crouched awkwardly while he closed the door securely, then he transformed back into a wolf and happily wriggled his way on to the tiny car seat next to his girl. He was slightly more on top of her than next to her but whatever, they fit. When he closed his eyes and tucked his nose in tight against her neck his belly didn't twist at all.

Stiles became aware of smell first; the mud and wet dog smells were completely overpowering. Then she recognized her Jeep and quietly tried to remember what had happened. Her whole body ached pretty badly but nothing was jumping out at her as broken or sprained, except maybe her head. Her hands were buried deep in Mr. Wolf's fur, he didn't seem to mind since she was probably keeping him from falling on the floor. He was just laying there calmly on top of her, probably not asleep but also not freaking out over being in her Jeep with the doors all closed. She tried to unclench her hands a little and they stung, they stung a lot, that seemed to remind her of slipping in the mud and grabbing trees, scraping her palms on the bark. She also remembered grabbing for that last root and then sliding down the hill to the brook.

That would explain why her clothes were caked in mud and why everything hurt. Somehow Mr. Wolf must have led her back to her car, because of course he led her everywhere anyway, and then she must have locked him in with her. Maybe she was nursing a small concussion here but it seemed plausible to her, she sighed in relief at having figured it out good enough and felt the wolf on her chest shift as her lungs expanded. It looked murky outside her window so she realized she should probably get going before her dad freaked out. At first the thought of sitting up seemed pretty horrific but as she lay there it almost felt like the pain was disappearing, which was not what she expected, it was supposed to feel worse as she became more awake.

The wolf whined a little, it sounded like he was asking her something. "Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks for keeping me warm Mr. Wolf. Sorry for locking you in here with me like a stuffed animal or something."

"Did I carry my pack back with me too?" she asked the wolf as she carefully shifted to sit up and look around. Her backpack was on the floor where Derek had shoved it when he placed her on the back seat. Maybe it had protected her back as she slid down the hill, it looked like it had judging by the big streak of mud.

Stiles wedged herself up a little straighter and the wolf scrambled to sit up himself down at the other end of the tiny bench. She reached down and hauled up the backpack, digging through it expertly to find her phone. It wasn't as late as she thought and there were no missed calls or messages. With a relieved sigh she pulled out her water bottle and took a long drink.

"Okay," she announced when she was done. "Okay, so I guess I'm okay to drive and I should get going. With any luck I can get home and shower before my dad notices I'm part swamp thing." Mr. Wolf made a whining noise.

"I'm not going to tell him, he might not let me come back and then I would get a terrible grade in biology. I mean yeah, boneheaded move there and I'm sure I almost really killed myself but I didn't, so no harm no foul. I just have to pick myself up, dust myself off and keep on keeping on." Mr. Wolf didn't look impressed with that plan.

"Hey, did you want to see what my house looks like?"

Mr. Wolf looked kind of embarrassed for her as he looked pointedly at the door handle. "Not so much huh? We have food you know, I could really go for some nice hot food now. Does that sweeten the pot for you?" His eyes told her that no it didn't, she was sure that if he could talk in words he would be saying something about it being him and not her and the importance of their friendship. She leaned over and opened the door for him, he didn't look back as he leaped out and ran away.

When Stiles climbed out herself to stretch and unstick her jeans enough so she could drive her hiking boots almost completely obliterated the footprints in the mud next to her door. She would have noticed them if she glanced down, they were too big to be her own feet and the person who left them hadn't been wearing shoes.


	2. Chapter 2

She didn't go back on Monday, she didn't even go to school on Monday. She had taken a long shower and stuffed all her clothes in the wash before her dad got home but he noticed all of her scrapes and demanded the story anyway. She very truthfully told him all that she could remember about how she had slipped in the mud and scraped herself grabbing at trees. Even with that drastically down-played version which left out the hour or so of unconsciousness and how Stiles really had no idea how she got back to her Jeep, even with those omissions her dad still went in to full protective mode. Also he was very disappointed that she was dumb enough to go hiking in the woods after such rains.

Stiles couldn't explain that it didn't feel like hiking to her, it felt like going to another kind of home. But she accepted the coddling, she felt like one giant bruise. It was around lunch on Monday that she realized he had let her stay home just so he could steal her car keys and forcibly keep her from going back to the field. That kind of pissed her off, she went on an angry cleaning binge to show him how mean and wrong he was. Staying active seemed to help her aches and pains loosen up, that's what she was telling herself as she vacuumed the living room. It was just after 3:00 by then because Scott and Allison came by with some of her homework.

Stiles dragged them into the sparkling kitchen and served them warm cookies she had made around lunch time. "I'm surprised your dad doesn't try to piss you off more often," mumbled Scott around the cookie in his mouth.

"Maybe my angry cleaning really does fill him with feelings of shame and inferiority," replied Stiles.

Scott chortled around his cookie and choked a little. Allison looked confused but she shrugged it off, content to not understand every facet of the Scott and Stiles relationship. "So why did you miss school today Stiles?" she asked, "you don't look ill."

"No, I'm not ill, I just stupidly tried to go to my field site yesterday and slipped in all the mud." She held up her palms and showed them the scrapes and bruising, "I got pretty banged up so my dad let me stay home."

"Well that sounds nice of him," observed Allison.

"On the surface it looks nice," agreed Stiles, "but he took my keys so underneath it's house arrest.

"Ah," said Allison, "I can see how that chafes."

"Hey, how was your weekend?" Asked Stiles suddenly remembering that she had that mysterious family thing.

Allison turned strange shades of red and then white and blustered out a reply of it being fine. She seemed really suspicious to Stiles but Stiles couldn't imagine what kind of family weekend would cause such a reaction so she let it go.

"Hey, I don't suppose you guys want to go check out my field site with me?" She asked.

Allison looked really uncomfortable but Scott shot the question down quickly. "If it was wet enough for a mudslide yesterday it won't be stable yet, best to wait another day at least if you want to have any kind of site."

"Yeah, I know. You're totally right, it's just I'm not really thinking of the site."

"No, you're thinking of that dog aren't you?" Stiles shrugged, there was no denying it really.

"Hey," said Allison not at all smoothly, "do you have an extra picture of that wolf dog? My Aunt Kate is into wolves and she would like to see it."

Stiles looked at her suspiciously. "Sure, I can get you one but don't let her mess up my biology project before it's due."

"Like causing a mudslide didn't already mess it up?" Asked Scott. Allison looked relieved that Scott had said it and not her.

"Oh, it's probably not that bad, do you want to see it?" Tried Stiles again. Scott just laughed at her.

Eventually they left and Stiles was too worn out from her day to start dinner. She took the homework notes that Scott and Allison had left and went upstairs to her room, maybe she could lean against a wall and pretend it was her tree. Pretending was easier than she thought it would be, she opened her door and saw Mr. Wolf stretched out on her bed. He thumped his tail when he saw her and she had to slowly walk over to the bed and gently touch his paw. He was real.

"How did you get here?" she whispered.

He thumped his tail a few more times but didn't look over at her open window, for once managing to keep himself from revealing too much. Stiles' eyes darted to the open window anyway, and yeah, it had been unlocked but it wasn't that wide open before. She tried to imagine a dog scratching at it to open it, which was as weird as a dog climbing a tree to reach the window in the first place.

"You're no ordinary dog are you?" she asked Mr. Wolf. He thumped his tail again and tried not to look guilty.

"So, um, are you hungry boy?" she asked. Mr. Wolf stood up on her bed at that exciting question, he looked really huge standing up there, his head was higher than hers and she scrambled back a few steps; catching her hand on the back of her desk chair and hissing when the scrapes on her palms flared to life. Mr. Wolf stretched out again and stared at her hands with a worried expression.

Stiles kind of blew on her hand, the cool air helped a little. The scrapes didn't hurt that bad but it was an effort to not brush her palms off on her thighs like she usually did, or make a fist when she was nervous like this. And also Mr. Wolf was still staring at her. "Right," she finally said and it felt stupid because he was just a dog, "I'll go see if we have anything for you to eat, you can, you should, I mean, I don't mind if you stay. But I'm not saying to 'stay' like if you were a dog or anything, it's your choice." And she scrambled out the door.

The wolf watched her go but as soon as she closed the door he jumped off the bed and started sniffing around the room again. He found her dirty clothes hamper and explored that, he curled his lip at the chair that had hurt her hand again, and then because her room was tidy and boring he jumped back up on the bed and stuck his head into her pillows. The smell by the pillows was really good and he wanted to crawl into them or roll on them or something but he stopped himself. When he heard her stomping up the stairs again he hopped off the bed and waited in a neat little sit next to it.

"Hey Mr. Wolf, you're still here." said Stiles and she sounded pleased. The wolf ignored her because she was holding a plate full of hot dogs. "So these are not hot dogs," she informed him sadly and he stared at her because that's what they looked like to him. "These are tofu dogs and they're really nasty and I don't know why I keep buying them because we throw them out when they expire without ever opening the package most of the time. I guess I buy them because if they're in the fridge then we don't have a reason to buy the real hot dogs right, we can't because we already have some. So it doesn't matter that they're too nasty to eat because they block us from eating the real ones.

But none of that matters to you, does it? No it doesn't," she answered in a sing song voice, "because you eat bunnies and all sorts of nasty stuff."

The wolf would have been deeply offended if he was listening but every particle of his being was still glued to the hot dogs. Stiles chuckled and tossed one to him. He caught it and swallowed it without pause.

"Did that taste okay to you?" she laughed and tossed him another.

The wolf started to notice that they were not very good hot dogs around the fourth one but he just swallowed them quicker after that so it was less offensive. He wandered over to lick the plate when he was done and then jumped up on her bed again. He draped himself over all of her pillows, rubbing his doggy smell deep deep within them.

Stiles wanted to lean against him and do her homework but she seriously worried she might make him puke if she leaned on his stomach so she went to her computer instead and got to work at her desk.

She didn't ask Mr. Wolf to 'stay' when her dad came home around seven and she stomped down the stairs to make dinner with him. After their omelets and toast a show that they both liked was on and they sat down to watch it together but it was a repeat. The sheriff fell asleep on the couch about ten minutes in and Stiles slipped out of the room to go check on Mr. Wolf, and finish up her homework.

Mr. Wolf was gone and she felt sadder than she expected as she finished her homework and read for a little while. The pillow reeked of dog and she secretly loved it.

Stiles went to school the next day and Allison cornered her almost immediately. She was going to have coffee with Allison and her aunt right after school; she was not going to return to the field site first, she was not going to get out of it.

Allison's Aunt Kate was every bit as terrifying as the forced coffee. She was gorgeous with hair and makeup and clothes and all those things that Stiles hated because she couldn't figure them out herself. And she was also very into wolves, very passionate about them. She tapped a sharp, manicured, and shellacked nail on the picture of sweet old Mr. Wolf. "This is an extremely unstable and dangerous creature Stiles; I need you to show me where you've seen it so we can take care of it."

"Um, hi, yes my name is Stiles. Pleasure to meet you Ms. Argent," mumbled Stiles to her coffee. Allison looked like she wished she was anywhere else on earth but she rubbed a consoling shoe along Stiles' calf. Ms. Argent didn't reply unless baring your ferociously white and even teeth at a person counted as replying. Silence reigned for about three seconds until Stiles caved.

"He's a dog, a dog that undoubtedly belonged to someone before. I would suggest trying to capture him and find him a new owner except he looks perfectly healthy. I can ask the local vet about options for getting him a rabies shot; I can easily feed him heartworm pills myself. In my opinion this is one of those things that isn't broken and doesn't need to be fixed."

"Yes, well your opinion is that of a sixteen year-old child who hasn't seen a whole lot of the world," dismissed Ms. Argent.

"Yes, well I guess it's obvious that you form your opinions quickly based on only the most superficial of evidence." Allison gasped a little at that but mostly because she hadn't been in many classes with Stiles before. Scott or her father would have been horrified and embarrassed of course - but they wouldn't have been surprised.

Tension simmered for a long moment while Allison tried to decide if there was anything at all that she could or should say. She had known it would be a disastrous meeting, as soon as her aunt saw the pictures she transformed into some sort of huntress persona. And of course Stiles would not accept some stranger simply announcing that her beloved Mr. Wolf needed to be taken care of.

"I'm quite certain that it's against the law to go up in the woods and shoot an animal that hasn't attacked a person or livestock," said Stiles finally and reasonably she thought.

"So, you're just going to wait for this dangerous creature to attack you first, and then what are you going to do?"

"My father, The Sheriff, is aware of the creature and he has asked me to bring a gun with me when I go to the field site. Would you like to see my permit to carry a concealed firearm, he signed it himself?" Thankfully Aunt Kate didn't feel the need to flash her teeth again, although it was close as Stiles, of course, dug out her permit and spread it out on the table for both of them to see. Allison was impressed, Stiles and her dad seemed like a pretty formidable pair to her. They were really good shots too she thought from her night at the firing range with them. And of course she had told her family all of this but they didn't seem to care.

The stand-off from hell finally ended when Stiles scalded herself by chugging her half-caff. Angrily she tried to wipe her chin and gather up her belongings to storm off to her Jeep. Allison almost got up to walk her out but then decided to stay and apologize profusely later, possibly with flowers or chocolates.

Stiles was grateful when Allison sat back down and she appreciated the 'I'm so sorry for my family' look she shared. It was just, there were so many ways this was bad form. Stiles was pissed that Aunt Kate assumed based on a picture that Mr. Wolf was a dangerous unstable, 'creature', and then she implied that Stiles' dad wasn't taking good care of her by letting her frolic willy-nilly in the woods, and then she implied that Stiles was incapable of taking care of herself. Just, just everything that was important to Stiles in one conversation. In one threat. It was outrageous and Stiles was practically shaking with anger.

She wanted to go to her site but she honestly wondered if one of the Argents was following her. She vaguely remembered Allison mentioning her grandfather coming for the weekend too. And maybe there was a big black SUV behind her, or maybe she was going crazy.

Mr. Wolf was not in her room, which was good if they were following her. They couldn't somehow storm in and shoot him. But it was bad because she didn't know if he was safe or not. She needed to go to her field site and see him. Stiles carefully changed into her sturdiest, darkest clothes and loaded up the little 22. Somewhere up her street a radio crackled, "It's working she's packing up to head out."

"Can you confirm if she has a weapon or not?"

"Affirmative, but it seems to be a small caliber, it shouldn't be much trouble to us, and of course it won't even slow the prey down."

"Roger that. Keep monitoring but stay as far back as you can, she's suspicious."

Stiles could have spent her whole ride out to the preserve trying to figure out if she was being followed or not but she decided it didn't really matter. She should just assume that they were following her, that's what her inner sheriff advised her to do anyway. She drove to a trailhead that was a mile or so away from her usual parking spot and figured that if her dad asked she could tell him the mudslide had wrecked the other trail.

Of course that meant she was on a mostly unfamiliar trail and she wasn't the best at those. She hoisted up her backpack, extra high since she had stuffed it with so much extra food today, and set off into the woods. "Mr. Wolf," she called but not really loudly or anything, just kind of conversationally, "if you're around and you can hear me I have to say I wouldn't mind a little help finding the field again." The woods remained silent and Stiles wasn't joined by her usual guide.

Eventually she found the field again, or at least she assumed it was the field. The place looked very different but there was a big gash of mud running from the trail down to the brook. "Wow," said Stiles as she scrambled over to examine the tangle of branches and roots knotted up against the bushes lining the brook. She could almost see the outline of her own body in the mess but there was no way she could have climbed out of there and made it back to her Jeep on her own. She looked around for tracks in the mud, either her boots or paw prints from Mr. Wolf but she didn't see any, well in one spot she saw something that looked like a foot print, but she figured it was probably just left from some rock that got kicked away. It was creepy the way the field was so ruined by the mudslide and it seemed really quiet without Mr. Wolf. She still felt a little guilty for causing the mudslide but she really couldn't imagine how she could have been involved in that and saved herself.

Stiles wanted to stay there until Mr. Wolf showed up but her Jeep was parked so far away she had to leave early. She glanced around wondering which path she had arrived on but then gave it up and just took her usual trail to the road. And so she was trudging down the road, backpack no longer quite so high or jaunty, when her dad rolled to a stop next to her.

"I'll give you a point for not sticking your thumb out but you must realize how much like a transient you look right now?"

"Greetings to you as well father of mine," replied Stiles as she climbed in the front. "My Jeep is just up the road ahead," and she gestured imperiously for him to continue.

The sheriff rolled his eyes and then turned on his signal to pull off the shoulder of the dusty quiet dirt road and merge back on the main part of the dusty quiet dirt road that had not another car in sight. Not even a large black SUV.

They bickered for both of the two minutes it took the sheriff to drive Stiles to her Jeep. It was nice. The sheriff followed her all the way home too even though he only stopped for a minute and then had to head back to the station. It really freaked out the people trying to tail her. Stiles completely failed to come up with an indirect way of asking her father if he thought she was being followed. There was nothing she could say that wouldn't result in her getting a 24/7 police escort so she said nothing.

Stiles was resigned to another night alone at home when her doorbell rang. She had to mute the tv and listen to it ring again just to be sure, her doorbell hadn't rung in forever. A very awkward looking Allison was waiting on her front porch, Stiles looked up and down the street very suspiciously but she seemed to be alone. She waved Allison in and regretted for a moment, a long moment, that she didn't have a wand thingy for checking to see if Allison was bugged or not. Allison came in and hovered near the stairs, "Stiles," she finally said, "I was wondering if you had more pictures of Mr. Wolf that we could look at together."

Stiles shrugged and led the way upstairs. As they walked Allison explained more, "my family seems really upset about Mr. Wolf. Like really freaked out. And they keep saying he isn't a dog but they also keep saying that there are no wolves in California. But they won't say what he is then."

"I'm glad you came over then, I've been trying to figure out the same things I think. I'll show you my research," finished Stiles as she opened her door and Allison saw just how obsessed her friend had become with Mr. Wolf. Stiles glanced at her window and her bed quickly and was relieved that Mr. Wolf at least wasn't there, just the dozens and dozens of pictures of him grouped on the wall with notes about shedding patterns and toenail colors.

Allison was fearlessly impressed. "Does this mean I have somebody to watch the season three premiere with?" she asked.

"Absolutely, my dear Watson," replied Stiles as she led Allison over to the wall.

There was a lot of data compiled on the wolf vs dog issue of Mr. Wolf but Stiles hadn't thought to check the known range for wolves. She was a little freaked out to realize how far away from that area they were. Allison seemed only slightly calmer, "our area would be a good habitat for wolves, if they were here. So it could be, like a stray or you know a lone wolf who escaped from someone's house or some other area."

"And if it is a lone wolf then your aunt is probably right and it's unstable and dangerous. I'm going to owe her a huge apology."

"I wouldn't worry too much about that Stiles," said Allison kindly, "she was kind of scary."

Stiles gave her a quick hug for being so cool about this. "Okay," she continued, "is there anything else we're missing Allison? If not dog then wolf, if not natural wolf then escaped pet? That's got to be it right?"

"As far as I know," said Allison. "But I'll see if I can learn more about why she was so scary over this. They want to take me out hiking next weekend for more family together time."

"That's kind of sweet," said Stiles. "And also it means Scott will be free to play some GTA with me."

"Because that's fair," grumbled Allison as they trooped back downstairs for some drinks before she headed home. "Wow, it's later than I thought," she observed.

Stiles blushed a little because it was 8:30 at night and her home was like a tomb. Her dad said he was just going in for a little while but that was hours ago apparently. She pasted on a smile and asked Allison about her homework situation. Allison replied with some meepy-type sounds and took off pretty quickly to get to work.

Stiles waved goodbye from the door with a strange feeling in her chest, it was like a warmth or happiness or something. Something almost too foreign to identify.

Scott invited himself to the field site on Saturday. Stiles sulked the whole time because she didn't think Mr. Wolf would show if Scott was there. Mr. Wolf had eventually come out on Thursday and shared a granola bar with her, on Friday he ate two before leading her back to her car early. Early for a Friday night she thought but it was getting a little dark.

Scott was bored once they reached the field site since he didn't want to do any of the work that Stiles had planned (I'm not in AP bio, I might mess it up) but he was also incapable of entertaining himself in the woods. They ended up taking a break and playing some DS games together. Stiles was very focused on pulverizing Scott's character when he suddenly breathed out a soft, "whoa!" noise.

Stiles looked up and saw a familiar nose poking out of the bushes. "Hey Mr. Wolf," she called and the wolf crept out a little further until they could see his tail brushing the leaves side to side.

"Stiles, he's fucking huge," murmured Scott.

"Yeah, I guess he is," replied Stiles.

"You have that gun like your dad said?"

"Yeah, it's in my bag."

"Super useful in the bottom of a backpack Stiles, is it even loaded?"

"Not really," replied Stiles.

Scott made a squeaky sort of noise, "is he going to come closer?"

"I don't know; he does when I'm here alone."

"I can't believe you come here alone with that thing. Pack it up, let's go," said Scott slowly getting to his feet. The wolf watched with unblinking yellow green eyes.

"What? Why are we leaving? It's Saturday."

"I can hear my mom calling me Stiles, whatever just get your stuff."

"Maybe you should try and make me so we can see how he reacts?"

Scott made a choking sort of noise and started backing away from Stiles. For a long evil moment Stiles thought about walking over to Mr. Wolf and seeing what would happen but she didn't want to endanger either of her friends like that. Instead she slowly got up too and started explaining to Mr. Wolf that he was late and they wouldn't get to play today because it was time for her to go but maybe she would be back tomorrow. And what sort of snacks was he in the mood for?

Scott locked the pathetic little canvas door after he climbed in the Jeep. "Oh my God," he moaned, "start the damn car already." Nervously he watched the tree line where Mr. Wolf was indeed standing and watching them. Mr. Wolf wasn't exactly smiling either; he looked like he had caught Scott trespassing in his yard.

"Calm down," snarled Stiles because Scott was making her nervous and she desperately didn't want to be afraid of Mr. Wolf. With much bickering they made their way to Stiles' house where Scott forced her to baby him with cookies and milk and a marathon of Uncle Mario. He blustered a lot but he was seriously freaked by the size of Mr. Wolf. He even wanted to tell the sheriff about it but he couldn't imagine how betrayed that would make Stiles feel, and she was bringing the gun –not that it did any good in the bottom of her back –and not that he thought that gun could actually hurt the massive beast he saw, annoy probably, slow down maybe if they were lucky, but she would have to shoot it straight through an eye to kill it with her tiny gun and he knew she would not take a kill shot first.

Uncle Mario was soothing in its familiarity and he was much better by the time he decided to head home. The sheriff wasn't home yet and Scott wasn't ready to see him. It was all for the best. He did call Allison though to discuss intervention tactics. Allison was recovering (her word) from her weekend still but they decided to ambush Stiles after school on Monday.

The wolf was agitated by seeing his girl with another person, with a boy. Somehow he had kept himself still and kept himself away from his girl but his body was throbbing with the tension. If his girl hadn't talked all the way from the field to her car he might have lost control. The wolf wasn't even happy to see the boy get in the Jeep with her, the wolf remembered the time he had spent curled up with his girl in that Jeep. It was his Jeep now, his smell was all over that backseat. Just like it had been all over his girl that day.

And then he had been so worried about his girl that he had found her house. He fondly remembered rubbing himself all over her bed and getting her scent worked deep into his coat. His signs were very clear and this idiot was deliberately ignoring them. The wolf paced along the edge of the woods as the car chugged away. Tonight he would go back to his girl's house, the hot dogs she gave him were pretty terrible but if that was the price of seeing his girl he could swallow them.

Stiles was so relieved that Scott left without going upstairs to her room. He went up there less often now that he was dating Allison but man, if he had seen the Mr. Wolf shrine he would have flipped his lid and called her dad for sure. The thing about nature, about trees and leaves and even rocks is that they are terrible at providing scale. And since Stiles was always alone and the one taking pictures it was really hard to get a feeling for how massive Mr. Wolf was just from the pictures.

You had to see Mr. Wolf with your own eyes like she was now as he stretched out across her bed again. Stiles froze in shock. The wolf stopped licking his massive paw to look at her, he cocked his head and tilted his body a little so more of his belly was showing. Stiles took a breath, "okay," she whispered, and then cleared her throat so she could actually talk. "Okay, I get it, you're harmless. Or maybe 'mostly harmless.' Whatever, I'll try to establish a normal cardiac rhythm if I can." The wolf gave her a disapproving look, see that you do he seemed to say.

"How is it," Stiles asked, "that I can understand your every twitch so well? Are we soul mates? Are you enchanted to live as a wolf every day and then every night you change into your human form and pine for me?" The wolf looked away as if he was embarrassed for her.

"Oh shut up," she told the wolf with a smile, slowly getting over her fear. She wandered over to her desk and pulled out the chair, carefully facing the wolf all the while. "So is this about Scott? Are you mad that he came to the field today?"

The wolf didn't look at her.

"Scott is like my oldest friend, if you're going to be a dick about it I'm going to choose him," snapped Stiles. "And now I'm arguing with a giant wolf in my bedroom. What even?"

She sat and looked at him stubbornly until her phone rang and she jumped. It was her father calling and Stiles felt horrible for not mentioning that she was in her room with Mr. Wolf but he never asked outright if there was anyone with her. There had been some tentative plans that morning but now it looked like they were falling apart so Stiles just nodded and insisted she understood to the phone for a while.

"Hey, so it's just us for dinner tonight," she told Mr. Wolf brightly after she hung up. "I promise not to feed you any more of those nasty tofu hotdogs again. I could run out to the store for some hamburger meat, I think you would like that a lot better. But, will you be here when I get back?" It wasn't cool that she sounded really pathetic but it was only Mr. Wolf right?

The wolf made himself more comfortable, if that was possible, and closed his eyes. Stiles darted for the door to rush out and buy dinner ingredients.

The wolf stood by the window and watched the little Jeep, the Jeep that was full of his scent in the backseat, drive away. With a shudder the wolf disappeared and a naked man appeared standing in the same spot. He leaned heavily against the wall for a moment; it was too strange to be standing again. He shook his head a few times, it looked like he was trying to get his head back on straight. And then he turned and looked around the room, he vaguely remembered coming here. He had transformed about halfway back to climb the tree and get the window open, but then the smell of the girl had overwhelmed him and he transformed into the wolf again.

It was wrong he remembered, distantly, to pretend he wasn't himself in whatever form he took. His mother had been very emphatic about that lesson, and about the lines between predators and killers. 'I'm both though so what does it matter' he asked himself as he pushed off from the wall and staggered over to a mirror by the closet.

His eyes were a murky green blue when he looked at them closely; trying to ignore everything else the mirror showed him. With a thought they turned a brilliant electric blue, he looked away quickly and walked a bit steadier over to the desk. The room was overwhelming him, everything was overwhelming him. He wanted to go back to the bed, to the pillows and just smell the girl for a while but if he does that he will transform into the wolf again and he still has a little time, just a little time before she comes back, to explore.

Her computer made a noise and he jumped, there was a tiny picture of the boy from the woods looking right at him. He stumbled away from the desk and out of view of the screen. The surprise almost made him transform again and that's weakness, he can't be constantly running and hiding in the wolf form. He wondered how long he has already spent hiding as the wolf, there's a newspaper in the trash can that he's crouched next to –he could look at the date on it. It isn't even a real newspaper, it's the crappy high school paper, he wants to look but doesn't want to. The anxiety makes him consider the wolf form again before he snatches it up and reads the date. Okay, so he knew it was around September. The weather is still nice but obviously the girl is in school because he watched her do homework. And yeah, it's been a few years but that's okay. It doesn't really matter. He repeats that a few times until his hands unclench and he can put the newspaper back in the bin. He takes a deep breath and the scent reminds him that he is in the girl's room, her desk doesn't smell as good as her pillows but not much smells as good as those pillows.

He should use this time to try to learn more about the girl. Like that her name is Stiles, which is interesting. That computers have gotten a lot cooler, he glances at hers and sees that the tiny picture of the boy, Scott, is gone now. He cautiously stood up and looked around more carefully, then froze at the wall of wolf pictures. It's amazing and creepy as hell, but then so is snooping around her room while she's out buying him groceries. There are tons of pictures of his wolf form, he doesn't even remember her using a camera out there. She put a lot of time into trying to figure him out, he smiles to himself, it's sliding from creepy into sweet now. There are pictures of his feet with his nails circled; lots of pictures of his eyes from different angles trying to figure out the color. She even has a little tuft of his fur stapled to the wall. He smiles and smiles as he reads.

She was really wrong about some of his traits though, she was basing too much on her observations of him eating those nasty hot dogs and other crap she had shared. That wasn't really his normal behavior; well he didn't think it was. And it would be terrible biology to judge only on how he acted around her, although to be fair he didn't really interact with anyone or anything else. Not for a really long time.

Just as he was about to add a little note to her wall about expanding her wolf trait observations he heard the Jeep return. He stood there listening to the engine tick down and the door open then close, he could still add the note, it would freak her out and maybe she would get a feeling for how creepy this wall was. But no, he didn't really want her to stop.

The wolf was curled up with his not insignificant snout stuffed deep into her pillows when Stiles peeked in her door. "Hey, you're still here. That's kind of cool; I'll cook up that meat I promised you. Although, I guess maybe you're rather have it raw, but no –I don't want to explain blood stains on the rug, or my pillows. Back in a sec!" she called as she bounded back down the stairs. The wolf smiled secretly into the pillow, raw would have been tastier probably.

They were both sitting comfortably on her bed, the wolf trying not to stare at Stiles' juicy burger, his own wad of meat long long gone, when Stiles happened to glance across the room at her wolf wall. Her cheeks went pink, "did you see that? I've been trying to figure you out buddy –not in a creepy stalker way, in an AP Bio extra credit totally legit scientific manner.

But lately I've been wondering if it's even something I can turn in. It's just so unbelievable you know. And the way you're here now and looking at me like you understand every word; I keep circling back to you being my enchanted prince, cursed to spend your time as a wolf."

The wolf went very still, and then decided that was suspicious so he tried to look disdainful but not cleverly so, and then he quickly decided disdainful was exactly wrong so he licked his snout again, checking for any missed meat specks, and felt that was also guilty looking so he ended up in his default baffled by Stiles look. That seemed safe. Not that Stiles was following his faces, she was pretty busy with her burger. And also avoiding eye contact because she was embarrassed about the wall. She should be the wolf sniffed to himself, all those pictures of his toes were unsettling. He decided to lick them and get them nice in case she decided to take more.

"Are you licking your feet on my bed?" asked Stiles with a tone somewhere between disgusted and amused. The wolf kept licking because it wan't a question that needed answering.

Her dad came home eventually and when Stiles went down the stairs to greet him the wolf slipped out the window. He wasn't very fond of being around any humans besides Stiles.

The next day was Monday and when she came home from school there was a strange black SUV parked in front of her house. The front door was unlocked which was bad, Stiles and her dad never left the front door unlocked. And her dad's car wasn't in the driveway, and maybe once upon a time Scott might have beat her home and opened it with his own key and been raiding her fridge but the black SUV said that was unlikely. Cautiously Stiles went in the house, she didn't have her ridiculous little 22, that was part of the reason she had come home of course, but also one didn't take on a black SUV level antagonist with a ridiculous little 22 pistol. She thought briefly of getting something better out of her father's gun safe but then she just decided to stay near the door and case the situation, which here means she yelled out a wavery sort of "helloooo?"

"Hello Miss Stilinski," purred Kate Argent as she strutted down the stairs like she owned the place. "My niece told me all about your incredible wall and I just had to see it myself, hope you don't mind that I let myself in. But you seem the type who doesn't mind when people let themselves in."

Stiles went very pale and still wondering if she knew somehow about Mr. Wolf's visits. She swallowed and gave Kate a dirty look. "Friends are always welcome of course, but that doesn't account for you being here does it?"

"Oh, tsk tsk, mind your manners little lady," she scolded as she turned and walked back up the stairs towards Stiles' room. As Stiles scrambled to follow her she was half afraid that her wall would be gone, that Kate had taken it all down, but she hadn't. She had amended it here and there with some post-it's which made Stiles walk over to it, compelled Stiles to stop whatever words she was about to spew and see what was written. The notes were strange, they were about a third option -not wolf or dog but werewolf. That was ridiculous, but Kate Argent didn't have a ridiculous bone in her terrifying body.

"I'm glad you aren't laughing, or asking me dim witted questions. I don't expect you to believe it so quickly based on just a few notes and suggestions, but I think after spending some time with your wall here, I think I'm starting to understand you Stiles. I don't need to waste my breath telling you anything now, spend the night thinking about it, exploring the possibilities, researching, and then call me when you're ready. I'll be around." And she swept back out of the house, Stiles even heard the lock click which was really disturbing and she was going to freak out over that just as soon as she was done freaking out over this.

She didn't go to the field site that afternoon, first because she was really busy reading everything she could find about werewolves and second she was sure that Allison's family was watching her and she didn't want to lead them to Mr. Wolf, or Mr. Werewolf. One of the first sites she found that seemed vaguely credible was French and as she was feeding passages into the least shitty translation page she could find she noticed the word argent meant silver, that was when she realized why Allison's family knew so much about werewolves. It was that as much as anything else that started to convince her it might be true.

Her dad poked his head in and said hi, he was surprised that she was home but not really once he saw that she was in her deeply engrossed with something mode. He left her alone to make dinner and then had to drag her out to eat with him. Stiles wouldn't say what exactly she was researching, some mythology stuff for English was all he could get, and she hadn't exactly finished any other homework. He wasn't too upset about her skipping a day in the woods, he didn't like her spending so much time alone like that, of course she was alone at home too, nothing was ideal. But he loved it when she got excited about learning like this, he couldn't even be too mad about the other homework, she was a great student and she could take care of herself as far as that went. There was a cheesy cop show on Monday nights that they sometimes tried to watch together but he didn't even mention it tonight, he just let her rush back to her room after the dishes were done. Stiles noticed though, she was a good girl. She came back and gave her dad a big hug, "I know our show is on tonight, but thanks for understanding, I'm just so jazzed about this topic, you know."

"I know," he said, pleased with the hug.

"Thanks daddy," and she was off. He settled on the couch to watch the show alone and solved the case early.

Stiles was expecting the ten thirty check in and she had printed out a bunch of pages to read in bed so she was all tucked in and angelic looking when he peeked in the door. It was very misleading, she stayed up for another hour reading. Her window was open but Mr. Wolf didn't visit. She was glad because she didn't know what kind of surveillance she was under and also because she wasn't quite ready to face him.

Allison took one look at the dark circles under her eyes and her crazy hair and dragged Stiles into the restroom. Apparently she was too nervous to just talk to Stiles and her hands had to move so she started dabbing makeup on and brushing out her hair. Stiles sat quietly, she was very tired and her brain was still humming. Finally Allison spoke, she was doing something with blush or concealer, Stiles wasn't sure; "they told me that first weekend, that was the big family thing -telling me that nightmares are real and that our family hunts them."

"Did they have proof?" Stiles asked.

"What do you mean, like a real one in the basement? No, they didn't. There were some pictures but they could have been faked. But really, they all looked totally serious and they had weapons and books; it's the world's most elaborate hoax if it isn't true. I just can't imagine they would put that much money and effort into it if it wasn't real."

"I believe you," said Stiles and not just because of the pointy things near her eyes now. She wondered how much more Allison would do before the bell rang.

"I don't know about Mr. Wolf though, they seem pretty convinced that he's one of them. If he is they will kill him Stiles, actually if they see him they will kill him. The life of one wolf or dog doesn't matter much compared to a werewolf being loose in Beacon Hills."

"But he's been in those woods for weeks, months -maybe even years and we haven't heard about anyone being bitten or anything."

"I'm sorry, that's why I'm trying to warn you."

Stiles was quiet again because Allison was doing something to her lips. Just when she felt it was safe to open her mouth again Lydia blew into the room, she seemed to live inside a cloud of good smells and perfect chicness. Allison smiled brightly at Lydia and stepped to one side so Stiles could be inspected. "I heard you were in the ladies' room Stiles, I wondered for a moment if you had gotten lost."

Which was cruel but she sort of smiled when she said it and Allison smacked her playfully so Stiles let it go. Lydia was smiling in an approving way too Stiles suddenly realized and she turned to check herself out in the mirror. She did look good, her hair was pinned back gently and seemed to be an artful tumble instead of a bird's nest, her face looked clean and fresh and not too done up, but still nicer than when it was just plain clean and fresh. Some sort of make up magic must have happened while they were talking, Stiles suddenly wished she had paid attention. "Can you show me how to do that sometime in slow motion? Possibly with a video camera running so I can play it every morning?"

"Of course, I'm glad you like it," replied Allison tucking away her magic potions and lotions as the bell finally rang and they all scrambled to class.

Scott was adorable at lunch, he knew that Stiles looked different but couldn't say how exactly and knew that he should not ask. Allison took pity and whispered to him that she had done it in the bathroom before school. "Done what?" asked Scott still looking confused.

"I put make up on her, don't you think she looks nice?"

"Yeah, I guess. It's um, subtle I guess, it's nice. Thanks?"

"Whatever, you guys are hopeless aren't you?"

Jackson looked twice at her too, Stiles was glad for the distraction. Enjoying all the attention kept her more present than she would have been otherwise, she still thought about Mr. Wolf a lot but she hadn't left school yet. She totally would have left school already except she wanted to see what Scott had to say. And also she was still strategizing how to sneak away without any black SUV's following her. Actually Lydia lived near the woods, that could have some possibilities. She interrupted whatever sweet nothings Scott and Allison were whispering about by throwing a fry at Scott. "Allison, do you think we could go over Lydia's sometime, like maybe today, and she could give me some advice on clothes?"

"Really Stiles?" asked Allison looking all doe-like and excited, dammit.

"Actually no," confessed Stiles immediately. "But she lives near the woods so I thought that if it looked like I was visiting her I could sneak out through her yard and try to drive Mr. Wolf away or something."

"You're such a hoot Stiles, you don't have a nefarious bone in your body."

"Oh yes she does," insisted Scott who had a grease stain on his shirt now.

While Allison understood that it was just a ruse and was willing to let it slide Lydia was not so easy. She understood that it was a ruse so Stiles could sneak off somewhere, but her price for cooperating was that Stiles did have to actually listen to her fashion advice and try some things on. "I'm sorry," she said, with a completely insincere smile, "but who knows when this opportunity will come again. I have wondered what's under those layers for years now."

Stiles blushed hotly, and then blushed even worse after she was led to Lydia's suite. Her closet seemed to be about the same size as Stiles' room, which was fine, except it was packed with clothes. There were Gap stores with fewer color choices.

"What if I'm not a size zero like you guys?" asked Stiles as she clutched her hoodie tighter.

"It's just us Stiles, we don't care." Allison assured her. Lydia had no comment.

Grudgingly Stiles peeled off her clothes, if she had known this morning she might not have worn the Sponge Bob briefs, except yeah, she would have. Nobody commented on them unless giggling or rolling your eyes counted as commenting.

Stiles was close enough to a size zero that they were able to torture her with more than a few outfits. They were both very serious about it too, justifying their combinations to each other and taking turns. Stiles was patient though and eventually they started dressing themselves too. She casually pulled her jeans and hiking boots back on and was just hunting around the piles for her t-shirt when the others noticed.

"Okay, so you're sneaking off into the woods to meet up with someone?" asked Lydia startling her.

"Yeah, I guess that's close enough," mumbled Stiles blushing.

"Well, that's appropriate footwear I guess, and the jeans are pretty serviceable –I think that pair I squeezed you into before did good things for your ass but given the way you bitched about breathing I'm guessing you won't want to go hiking in them. Now, is stealth an issue?" she asked pulling out some soft black turtlenecks.

"Yeah, it kind of is, but those are cashmere and cost more than my Jeep."

"Sweetheart everything costs more than that Jeep."

Stiles was outfitted with a long-sleeved black silk undershirt and a ridiculously soft and warm red hoodie then a black leather jacket. They also rolled up her jeans and scrunched down her socks. Then they gave her way too much eye makeup, because it made her look 'covert'. There was also a bright red lip stain, even though Stiles stubbornly repeated that she had read about eyes or lips –never both. Even Allison looked sad and patted her head over that.

"Can I go now? The porno director gets angry when I'm late." grumbled Stiles.

Lydia smacked her head and then had to fix her hair again. "It isn't that much makeup, it's just that anything is a lot of makeup when you start from nothing."

"Also, I'm going in the woods," Stiles reminded them sullenly.

"To meet somebody," added Lydia.

They all headed down to Lydia's pantry where she grabbed Stiles backpack and dumped out all of her textbooks and replaced them with food and drinks.

"I'm not planning on being out there all night, there's school tomorrow and I haven't started my homework yet."

"It won't count as a date unless you eat together Stiles."

"Plus you never know. Do you want a gun? I could run home and get one," offered Allison.

"No, I do not want a gun. Waving a gun around just increases the odds of an accident."

"Plus, we would have to accessorize her differently," added Lydia.

"Really?" asked Stiles. "Are you saying you have a holster? A thigh holster would be totally sexy as all get out wouldn't it?"

Lydia smiled proudly at her and shoved the backpack which now weighed 34 pounds in her arms. "This is getting really ridiculous," grumbled Stiles as she struggled with the straps and came close to messing up her hair which was in an artful updo with little wisps curling around her neck and ears. Both Lydia and Allison surged forward to help.

At last they decided she was ready, Allison went out first with a Frisbee which Lydia swore she had never seen in her home before. She looked around casually but carefully before waving for the others to join her, they tossed the Frisbee back and forth for a while, moving further away from each other each time until finally Allison whipped it off into the woods and Stiles jogged after it. Allison and Lydia chatted for a bit and then wandered in the house, hoping for the best.

Stiles didn't think she was being followed but she picked up the Frisbee anyway, if some goon from a black SUV found her she could say she had gotten lost. With all this makeup on and a backpack full of food and water, whatever. She was a longish way from her field site and coming at it from a different direction but there was nothing she could do about that now. She took a careful bearing and tried to walk in as straight a line as she could while she internally debated whistling or talking out loud.

A little of the debate spilled out in the form of muttering, making noise would be bad if she was being followed or they were looking for her but it would be good if Mr. Wolf found her on his own. And of course she was making noise anyway because her woodlore sucked, despite having read every romance novel in the public library that had a Native American on the cover.

She was just sliding, mostly on her feet, down a muddy slope towards what she hoped was the same brook that ran past her field site, when Mr. Wolf found her. He bounded pretty joyfully over to her and then came to a sudden stop and carefully sniffed. Stiles stopped sliding, well finished sliding and then stopped, and held up her arms so he could appreciate the full outfit. If she wasn't balanced on a rock she might have turned in a circle for him.

"Hey," she finally said when it looked like he might never be finished freaking out over her wearing different clothes and daring to appear in a different part of the forest. "Do you have somewhere we can go to talk? Somewhere private?"

The wolf gave her a very confused look and Stiles started scrambling towards him. "Listen," she whispered when she was close enough, "the Argent family knows about you, I'm afraid they're following me. If there isn't a place, then maybe you should just take off. Go up to Oregon, no head up to Idaho and try to hide with the real wolves. Okay? Can you do that? You understood every other word that's come out of my mouth haven't you? I know you understand this too. Argents man, they're back, they're here."

Stiles might have had a tiny slim little hope that maybe he really was just a wicked smart hybrid but when she repeated the word Argent all of his fur stood on end and he growled. "Exactly," she said, "go, shoo, hide." And she crouched there with her hands in fists because she didn't want to grab him and bury her face in his fur and tell him how much their strange friendship meant to her.

Except the wolf that understood every word didn't move at all. He just stood there looking angry. "Don't be mad at me man, I did my best to not be followed. I became a human Barbie to try and avoid them, look at this eyeliner. Sacrifices were made."

The wolf shook his head and then moved forward to grab her sleeve and tug at Stiles. "I got it Lassie," Stiles told him shaking her sleeve (actually Lydia's sleeve) out of his mouth. "Show me the way to the well already."

The wolf wagged his tail but it was as pathetic a wag as her joking. He led the way very quietly and stopped frequently to sniff or look around, Stiles followed as best she could. She was so focused on walking carefully and quietly that again she paid no attention at all to where she was walking and she almost shouted when she saw it was the place with the view that the wolf had led her to once before. He met her eye and seemed to give her an approving look for controlling herself. Then after the briefest pause he led her along a path that was really well hidden, and in fact might not have been a path at all. Stiles had to take off the backpack and pull it behind her to get through one thicket, the branches snagged horribly in her hair and she knew she probably looked like Cinderella at 12:05: the hairdo was gone; she was sweating and could feel the makeup running. Whatever, at least when they got where they were going she had all that food and water.

Finally they left the bushes and came out near the base of a biggish hill. The wolf easily loped up the cliff face and Stiles resigned herself to scrambling after as best she could. She skinned her palms again and was about to go sliding down down down when a human hand grabbed her wrist. She gasped as she was lifted easily up to the ledge by a ridiculously attractive naked man. He didn't seem aware of his nudity and Stiles tried very hard not to be aware either. Just back from the ledge there was a low overhang that led to an actual cave, she scrambled in the opening after him. It wasn't tall enough to stand in but you could crouch and scramble around. The youngish man crawled quickly over to a dusty old blanket and sat on it with his back against the wall, he gathered the ends into his lap but it didn't seem to be because of modesty.

Stiles shrugged off her backpack and pushed it to the side, then hesitantly stopped where she was.

"Thanks for the assist, um, back there," she started lamely rubbing her wrist, he had grabbed her pretty tight so his grip was strong enough to hoist her up. She wasn't complaining, sliding down the hill would have hurt much worse.

"You're really, my Mr. Wolf, you're really a, um, a werewolf?"

The look he gave her was exactly like the one Mr. Wolf would have given her for saying something so dumb. "I'll take that as a yes," she announced and he gave her a tiny smile. It was sort of familiar to Stiles. "Hey, I know you don't I? You're Derek, Derek Hale aren't you? I thought you had… well they said that you died in the fire with your family. My condolences on that."

He looked at her sharply and then deliberately turned his head away.

Stiles decided that crouching in the middle was uncomfortable, she started crawling over to where Derek was sitting and dragged her backpack with her. When she got close she peeled off Lydia's jacket and spread it on the rock so she would have something to sit on and then she plopped herself down on it. She wondered if Derek was cold but then she felt the heat pouring off his bare leg next to hers, probably not she guessed.

"So, let's see what my friend Lydia packed us to eat on our date," and she dug into the bag. "Looks like a kind of shitty date," she announced moments later, "we have granola bars but they're like organic crap with no chocolate chips, so bleah. And water, yum yum there. And an apple that got smooshed when I leaned on a tree or fell or who knows what but it's pretty bruised up. And oh, my god, she packed a banana -has she ever gone on a hike? That stuff is never going to come out of my backpack." Derek was starting to smile a little bit and he had leaned over to see for himself but Stiles was still buried in her bag. "Hold on, this looks promising, oh yes, we have cookies. I take everything back, Lydia is awesome."

Stiles turned to show Derek the white bag of fancy cookies and he was right there, leaning towards her with his eyes all soft and questioning. Wordlessly she offered him the bag, his teeth gave a quick flash of white as he dug his hand in and pulled one out. Stiles dug out her own too and they both settled back to quietly eat their cookies.

The sun started to go down and the early evening rays stretched into the cave. Stiles watched the light without moving. "Your alarm hasn't gone off," said Derek eventually.

"I didn't bring my phone with me," explained Stiles. "It has a GPS chip in it that my dad can use to track me, I figured if my dad can use it someone else can probably get access to it too so I left it in my Jeep at Lydia's house."

"Won't your dad be worried?" asked Derek.

"Yeah, he'll be crazed and ground me for a month probably."

"But you're still here?" asked Derek.

"Derek, your family died in that fire and I can only assume you've been hiding in the woods as a wolf all alone ever since that night. You chose to reveal yourself to me, and I'm guessing only me, after all this time. I'm not going to go running back for curfew after that."

"I don't want you to get in trouble though, your dad cares about you."

"Derek, I barely survived getting here in broad daylight, how do you expect me to find my way back to Lydia's house and my Jeep now that it's getting dark? It would take me hours and be more dangerous than just being grounded."

"I can take you back. I could carry you really fast."

"Oh Edward, won't that be romantic."

Derek glared at her and Stiles smiled, "that was my favorite wolf face, the I'm so disappointed in your sense of humor scowl. It's amazing how I could translate your faces, isn't it?"

"Yeah, well I'm not cursed to be a wolf by day and your soul mate at night, I can change forms whenever I want."

"Well that's a relief."

Derek snatched another cookie but he was worried about Stiles getting in trouble now. "I have a third form, it's in between the other two, sort of like the wolfman they show in the movies."

Stiles made a noise that meant I'm listening but my mouth is full of cookie.

"I'll change to that form and carry you back; it will be the easiest one."

"Okay," said Stiles. "Will you be careful of the Argents?"

"Yeah, I have um, good hearing and smell and sight and all that so I should be able to tell if they're around."

"How good is it?"

"Is what?" asked Derek.

"Your senses, are they wolf good or supernatural good?"

"Are you still working on your biology project?"

Stiles smiled, "no, I'm always like this."

Derek smiled back, "Supernaturally good, and also I can heal myself and absorb pain from others."

"What does absorb pain mean?"

Derek pulled up both of Stiles' palms; the right one had the deepest gouge, it was actually bleeding a little still. Derek wrapped his really warm fingers around her hand and the sharp sting disappeared instantly. "Wow," she whispered, "that's cool."

"You, um, you also seem to be really warm." Stiles added softly because he was still holding her hands. Derek smiled but didn't let go, instead he cupped her left hand and took the sting away from that palm too.

"Stiles," Derek whispered because whispering was the right thing to do when your faces were inches apart, "thanks for coming to warn me."

"Are you dangerous?" Stiles asked, which was a stupid thing to ask when you were all alone in a cave with someone who just finished telling you about all their supernatural powers.

"Not to you," he answered with a smirk.

Stiles was about to make a retort but she closed her mouth and decided not to goad. Derek was still really close when he raised one finger to her cheek and trailed it along her skin. "You look really different today."

"It's makeup."

"I know Stiles, just because I live in a cave…" and he smiled at her which totally transformed his face into sunshine and rainbows. It was really wonderful and Stiles' mouth opened just a little in surprise, he was really fine looking when he smiled, you know for a guy living in a cave.

Derek kissed her then. It started out very easy, just a press of his lips against her lips but then he nibbled just the tiniest bit at her bottom lip so Stiles had to open her mouth more and then his really warm tongue was in her mouth and her hands were buried in his hair and she just wanted to melt right there on the cave floor.

The kissing somehow managed to kick up into an even higher and better level of kissing before Derek had to wrench himself away. His cheeks were flushed so Stiles assumed hers were more flusheder. Somehow, incredibly, she had forgotten he was naked until she saw his bare chest heaving in front of her. And she really really wanted to look down but she also didn't want to go all the way in a cave. She kept her eyes locked on his face and demonstrated her own sunshine and rainbows smile.

Derek seemed to appreciate her control as he adjusted his blanket a little. "Did you say you had water?" he asked breathlessly?

"Yeah, no wonder it was so heavy, huh?" replied Stiles as she fumbled to get them each a bottle. She decided to leave Lydia's foodstuffs there. Derek tried to make a funny about making herself at home but she could tell he was pleased she was maybe planning on coming back. Which she was.

Climbing back down the rock wall looked even scarier. Stiles stalled a little by putting Lydia's jacket back on and her now mostly empty backpack. Derek appeared next to her on the ledge, she looked over but not down. "I'll transform and then I can carry you down."

"Down this? what exactly are you going to transform into? an escalator?"

Derek showed her his teeth in a playful snarl and then transformed around the snarl somehow. It was very strange, his teeth changed and his face and his body but the snarl was fixed throughout the process.

Stiles smiled at the finished product, "Oh my god, look at those sideburns, this is great." She pushed and pulled at his hands and his head and even made him turn around so she could see if there was a tail, sadly there was not and also this form did not do a whole lot for his ass.

"Finished?" asked Derek in a tone that tried to be suffering but had too much excitement in it to actually sound the slightest bit suffering.

Stiles had already forgotten about their imminent journey and her absent nod was followed with a muffled shriek as he scooped her up bridal style and slid down the rock face. At the bottom he put her down to curse and gasp for a minute before he turned his back to her and crouched in silent invitation.

This was potentially embarrassing but finding her way back to Lydia's on foot would be much worse so she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hooked her knees over his hips. He slid his hands under her thighs and hoisted her up higher, with her chin on his shoulder she was in Bella-position and died a little inside, but then he started running and damn it was as cool as the movie.

She wondered fleetingly how he would know where her Jeep was parked, there hadn't been a phonebook in his cave for him to quick look up Lydia's address but somehow an improbably short amount of time later the trees were thinning and Lydia's house was shining in front of them. Slowly Derek lowered her to the ground and then slowly he kissed her again. He was a lot taller than she was standing chest to chest like this so her hands just kind of settled on his hips and she tried to ignore his, um, growing interest in the kiss.

"If we keep doing this I'm going to have to find some pants." Derek whispered to her because their faces were really close again.

Stiles was too flustered from the kissing to find a suitable reply so she just blushed and gave him another peck on the lips and slowly stumbled back and away. "Be safe Derek," she whispered before she turned and walked towards the light.

Allison's car was gone but it didn't look like the Martins were eating dinner so Stiles knocked cautiously on the back door. Lydia opened it quickly and slipped out to inspect Stiles privately. "It's not even 7 yet so I bet you can make it home without trouble, except of course you look like you've been making out with someone." And she quickly pulled some individually wrapped makeup wipes out her pocket and ripped one open, dropping the packaging on the ground, and attacked Stiles' face.

Stiles stood passively and allowed it, even the littering, because she was so relieved it wasn't that late and also that Lydia was apparently getting the kissing evidence off her face. But then the inquisition began, "did you have a good time?"

"Yes," mumbled Stiles.

"It's fine that you aren't going to tell me who you met off in the woods like that, it's even fine that I couldn't get Allison to cave after you left. Because tomorrow at school I will watch you like a hawk and I will figure it out missy. You have a terrible poker face."

"Thanks Lydia, I appreciate your support in my escapade."

"Anything for love Stiles, and you aren't that terrible a friend. I appreciate the academic challenge you give me and it's nice to return the favor in a way, by helping you reach this potential."

"Did you just say, in your roundabout backhanded compliment way, that I have babe potential?"

"Yes Stiles, I did. You have a lot of potential for any number of things. And like I said I will be watching you from now on; if this boy doesn't strike me as suitable you will hear about it."

Stiles pulled off the leather jacket and handed it to her; she tried to surreptitiously brush the gravel bits off the back from where she sat on it. Lydia took it with no comment; it was the sort of leather that looked better with a little distress. Stiles started to unzip the red hoodie next but Lydia stopped her, "Red looks much better on you than it does on me, you can keep that. Try not to look so much like a hobo tomorrow."

Stiles gave Lydia a big smile as she realized that Allison had sent her off in to the woods wearing a red hood. "I'll do my best. Good night Lydia, and thanks again."

As Stiles strolled down the fancy cobbled driveway to her Jeep she couldn't believe how much her life had changed in just one day or how happy she was. Her dad must have picked up on it because he wasn't that angry about her getting home so late or not having dinner started.


	3. Chapter 3

Getting her homework done that night was really hard. Stiles desperately wanted to reread all of her Mr. Wolf notes and everything she had looked up about wolves or werewolves, she wanted to think about everything all over again with the new context of Derek being real. Doing math instead was an almost physical pain, but she did it for her GPA and for Lydia, because Lydia told her she appreciated it.

School was a little bit fun, Derek wasn't there of course and it seemed to be frustrating Lydia. Unfortunately it was frustrating Stiles too. She realized during her study hall though that Derek had been here just a few years ago, she wondered what classes he took and what sports he played. She didn't even know how old he was, he didn't look that old. The school was an excellent place to research these things because it was all on paper and if the Argents were bugging her computer, which she figured they were since Kate had been alone in Stiles' room for an unknown amount of time that day, then she didn't really want to use her laptop to google the Hales.

She learned a lot of things, that Derek was supposed to be a lot older than he looked, which was weird but hey so was turning into a wolf. She learned that he was big into basketball when he was a student which was hilarious and made her want to rent _Teen Wolf_. And then she learned that a pretty brown-eyed girl from his year was killed in an 'animal attack.' Stiles remembered Derek's evasive answer about how dangerous he was and felt a shiver go down her back.

She found a memorial for Paige in the yearbook and photocopied everything, especially the picture of Derek and Paige mugging a kiss with her giant cello lurking between them. Derek looked so carefree in that picture it broke her heart. What had happened?

Stiles kept reading, a bit more frantically now because her free period was almost over. The next year Derek wasn't on the basketball team anymore, he wasn't on any teams that she could find. There were hardly any pictures of him, although it was hard to tell skimming through the yearbook like she was. This was the year of the fire and she switched back to the school paper trying to remember what month she had first heard about the Hale family, the Hale pack she realized now. No wonder there had been so many family members living together out on the edge of the forest like that. No wonder they had been so quiet and kept to themselves so much.

She found the issue about the fire and photocopied all the articles quickly, then she went to the week before the fire and flipped through the pages. Hoping to maybe see another picture of happy and carefree Derek. She saw Derek, she saw him looking cautiously happy. Or maybe not happy, maybe he just looked smug. And why shouldn't he look smug with the incredibly beautiful and dangerous and too old for him Kate Argent was perched next to him in the bleachers?

Stiles photocopied that page too, but she did it with a sick feeling in her stomach. These were not going to be happy conversations with Derek and she wasn't looking forward to them. But she was going to try before things went any further that was for sure, the picture of Paige with her dark hair and dark eyes spoke to Stiles like a warning from the grave or something. The only thing that saved her from ditching the rest of her day to go home and wrap herself in an afghan with a pint of ice cream was Lydia Martin popping up suddenly and asking her what she was doing. Stiles scrambled to hide everything and make it to her next class on time.

When she finally got home and had time to think about things she just didn't know what to do. She had copied all those articles so she should read them, there was nothing to gain by burying her head in the sand. So instead of rushing to her field site she sat down and carefully read everything, she even made notes on a little timeline and realized that Derek should look much older than he did.

She wondered if the healing powers he told her about made him age slower or if it was because of something else. It was impossible for her to tell with a statistical sample of one. (It always pleased her when she remembered to think scientifically.) I should find another werewolf she thought for a moment, and then she remembered that Derek's uncle was probably still in the hospital, unless he had recovered or died. 'Wow, that was profound,' she thought.

She jotted down some notes about the long term care ward that Peter Hale was presumably still in and their visiting hours and then since she didn't know what else to do with this information she just added it to her wolf wall and hoped her dad wouldn't notice. When she remembered all the visits that Mr. Wolf had made to her room she decided to put all of her new Hale materials up there too. Because then when Derek visited next he could see and know that she knew and she wouldn't have to figure out how to bring up that he had dated a girl that looked like her who was torn to pieces by a wild animal (read werewolf?) and then moved on to dating a hunter shortly before his whole family was hunted(?)/killed.

Sometimes Stiles was incredibly incredibly stupid. That's what she decided after Kate Argent stopped by and saw her additions. Stiles had met her dad at the diner closest to the station for dinner, it was the birthday of one of his deputies and that was what they did when someone had to work on their birthday. She had a good time and was kind of bummed when her dad sent her home alone but he was covering for the deputy so he could go home too and whatever, she was a big girl.

Except she didn't feel big when she saw the black SUV parked across the street again. "Oh my god, breaking and entering into the sheriff's house is just incredibly stupid!"

"Cry me a river," said Kate dismissively when Stiles confronted her in her room again, "did you kiss him? He's a great kisser isn't he? His body temperature runs higher than ours, it makes things really hot I thought."

"Does your family know about your fraternizing with the enemy? What if he had knocked you up, - with puppies?" Stiles could not believe the words that were coming out of her mouth except when she saw that picture of them in the bleachers it got her so so so disgusted that, she just practiced, sort of, what she would say if she got the chance and then the chance presented itself and god damn if her mouth didn't remember all of it. Just like she practiced.

Kate sneered at her but thankfully didn't try to get into a debate, she was apparently trying to appear mature or some bullshit. Stiles wasn't going to let that piss her off more, so she threw her clothes around and flounced. Kate turned back to the wall.

"I love how organized you are, this is really outstanding. I wasn't sure it actually was a werewolf you know, there was a tiny chance that your pet was some stupid hybrid lost and wandering the woods. That was more likely than an omega actually, because the ability to transform all the way to a true wolf form is extremely rare. It's interesting that Derek has inherited that gift from his bitch mother."

She tapped a pointy red fingernail on the picture of Derek and Paige, "I guess that's why he was so easy to seduce, he must have been rebounding pretty hard from her. Maybe he was just so full of grief and sorrow and guilt after everything that he just checked out and that's how he managed the wolf form. Was he able to transform back to a fully humanoid shape?"

"Don't say humanoid like that," snarled Stiles. "You make him sound less than human."

"He is Stiles, he really is. Don't delude yourself into thinking he's more than human, superhuman or perhaps supernatural –there's nothing natural about him, his type are demons, abominations.

But don't take my word for it, just use my word as another starting point. I like where you've gone so far, keep going. We'll make a hunter out of you yet. Ask him all about this girl and why he doesn't smile like that anymore." She turned to gather up the slim leather jacket she had placed neatly over the back of Stiles' desk chair, "I'll show myself out," she murmured and disappeared out the door.

"Don't take the silver," yelled Stiles after her. Fuckity, fuck, fuck, she thought to herself. Nice job letting the Argents know that it's Derek for sure in the woods. She flopped on her bed and buried her head under the pillow, it smelled like dog. The guilt propelled her to her feet and she looked at the wall, grumbling about horses and barn doors she took her cool wall of wolves down and stashed the different papers in a bunch of file folders. It wasn't like Kate wouldn't have rummaged through her desk if the stuff hadn't been on the wall. Was she supposed to have everything encrypted and locked up in safes?

Everything sucked so she went downstairs to make sure Kate had locked the door behind herself and see what kind of ice cream was lurking in the freezer, there was a half gallon of a disgusting banana split flavor which Stiles might finally be upset enough to eat. She brought the bowl back to her room and wasn't even surprised to see the wolf furiously sniffing at her desk chair with all the hair on his back standing up.

"Hey Derek," she greeted, "yeah, Kate Argent broke into my house while I was out. She knows that my mysterious wolf in the woods is you now. I'm sorry, it was stupid of me to print out stuff and bring it home."

The wolf blurred and then her favorite naked teen was standing in front of her again. "It's okay Stiles, they were bound to find out. She broke into your house though?"

"Yeah, she does it all the time pretty much." Stiles pushed her bowl of ice cream into his hands, "here why don't you eat this and I'll go steal some sweats from my dad for you."

When she came back the bowl was empty and suspiciously clean looking. "I can't believe you let me feed you from a bowl on the floor, god, that's so embarrassing."

"I didn't mind that, but those hot dogs were nasty, I barfed in your yard afterwards."

"Did you really? I'm so sorry, of course you could have stopped eating them dumbass."

Derek just shrugged and smiled at her as he stepped into the sweats and pulled them up to his slim hips and for the first time Stiles felt like she could actually look at him. She quickly looked away again and scrambled to find him a shirt, he was built like a Greek god. And he kissed her, and he was in her bedroom, and her dad wasn't home, and he was like a supernatural creature, team Jacob, oh my god. She ran back down the hall to steal a shirt from her dad's dresser.

Derek made a little face like he didn't appreciate the smell, or maybe he just didn't like wearing clothes after so long. Whatever that was his problem, she couldn't talk to him with his pleasure trail right there staring at her.

"Okay, so um, I looked through some old newspapers and yearbooks during my free period today. I'm not apologizing because that's who I am and you know that, apparently everybody knows that. I saw a few things that, um, sort of concerned me. Do you want them chronologically?"

"I guess, but it's weird standing here like this, can we lay down or something? Maybe turn the lights a little lower? It's kind of harsh like this."

"Okay, I guess I can see that. Sometimes it's easier to talk like that." And Stiles decided that even though it was only 8:30 if she was going to lay down in bed she might as well get comfy so she grabbed her pajamas and told Derek she would be right back.

When she came back with her pajamas on and her face scrubbed and her teeth all minty Derek had the overhead light off and just one small light on near the bed with the shade tilted to the side so it was just a soft glow. They stretched out side by side on the bed and Stiles started to appreciate how warm Derek was until Kate's words came back to her, then she curled up a little away from him. Derek noticed though and rubbed his hand up and down her arm.

Stiles flopped back onto her back and looked up at him, "okay, chronologically, tell me about Paige."

The hand on her arm tensed and then released, "I was completely in love with her, she was so beautiful and so talented and so fun to be around. She was really bossy and I just loved it I guess. But she didn't know about werewolves and that made me nervous. So my uncle – he was sort of my friend too because we were pretty close in age- he arranged to have an alpha that he knew bite her. You have to be bitten by an alpha werewolf to turn into a werewolf.

But the bite doesn't always take, and it didn't take for Paige. It was killing her instead. I carried her away from him, I carried her to the woods and tried to comfort her, tried to draw off her pain, but there was too much of it and I was just a boy. She was suffering and crying and I knew she was going to die so when she asked me to help her, when she asked I snapped her neck."

Stiles had no words for that so she just let the tears stream down her face and a few hiccupping sobs escape. Derek wrapped an arm around her and Stiles threw herself at him, mumbling how sorry she was. She wanted to ask if he thought she looked like Paige, if she acted like Paige, all sorts of stupid little girl questions but she swallowed them all down. It was easier to not talk with her throat so thick anyway.

Finally she got enough control to ask Derek if he told anyone, he nodded back. "My uncle knew and my mother knew. She was so wise, I think she knew everything that happened in this town."

"And they weren't mad at you were they Derek? They understood didn't they?"

"Yeah Stiles, they understood."

That seemed to help Stiles get herself together a little. "So after Paige, was that when Kate started hunting you?"

"Yeah, I can't imagine anyone being more vulnerable and stupid than I was. She was so slick and hard, just everything was different from Paige, and she made me feel cool."

"She's evil."

"No argument from me, smelling her in here was disturbing. You shouldn't be around her, definitely not alone with her."

"Well that's kind of hard to control when she keeps breaking into my house. And Kate used you to hurt your pack?"

"Yeah, I told her too much. I told her about a party and how everyone was at the house, how they all slept late in the morning –stupid things like that, I didn't realize. She used it though somehow, she made a magical ring around the house that they couldn't cross and then she set the house on fire and burned them all alive."

"Not all of them, not you and not your uncle."

"What?" asked Derek, startled.

"Your Uncle Peter is in the long care ward at the hospital, he's been in a coma but he isn't dead. Maybe he's healing?"

"I don't know, do you think I could see him?"

"Of course, I'll help you. Get you some clothes, drive you, go with you, whatever you need Derek."

"Thanks Stiles, not tonight –maybe not this week. I think I have to, I really haven't talked to anyone besides you since the fire."

"That's another thing Derek."

Derek turned to look at her, he still had a hint of a smile from hearing that Peter was alive but this sounded like something serious to Stiles. She lifted her hand to trace along the side of his face, his cheeks were smooth –he couldn't grow facial hair for shit yet.

"Derek the fire was six years ago, you're supposed to be twenty-two now."

"I know, I saw a newspaper in your trash the other day."

"You look the same as your yearbook pictures."

"We age differently, but not that different really. I think it's because I spent so much time as a wolf. I don't know. I don't feel like I'm twenty-two, I feel like the fire just happened kind of, but also not because I spent so much time laying outside that cave and just looking at the horizon you know. It's like I didn't go forward in age, but I gained some kind of distance from the fire at least.

Stiles, I know your mom isn't here but losing my whole family in one fire like that, my whole pack, my whole world really, you just can't. I went insane."

"Okay, but you're talking to me now, so you must be getting better." She sighed and got more comfortable next to him, his hand dropped down to her waist and it was nice. She burrowed her head into his neck just a little bit more, so warm, "those are all my questions," she told him. "Thanks for answering them."

"You're welcome," he whispered, "don't expect me to ever talk this much again."

"Okay," she replied, not knowing how serious he was being.

Derek slipped out before the sheriff came home, he tucked her in before he left otherwise the sudden lack of warm would have woken her up. It was weird that she had gone to bed at 8:30 but maybe little kids had the right idea, she felt pretty awake and awesome. She was awake enough to even try to not dress so much like a hobo. It was a challenge because she mostly had hobo clothes but she found some jeans with no holes that fit her well and then she found a long sleeve shirt that didn't have anything ironic printed on it, and she found a scarf which was an accessory and therefore worth bonus points.

She combed her hair carefully and put a clip in it and then because hey, why not go all the way, she put some chapstick on too.

"Well look at you," chirped her dad at the breakfast table. "Maybe you should go to bed at a reasonable hour every night, what do you think?"

"I think I was thinking of that but then you said it so now I won't ever do it again. Another parental fail daddy dearest."

"Shoot," grumbled her dad as he slurped his coffee and went back to the sports page.

School was school, Lydia got excited to see Stiles looking 'like she tried at least' but when it became apparent that her mystery beau wasn't a Beacon Hills student she went back to her own life. Allison was a little more determined.

"Stiles, are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked in the girls' restroom. She was just washing her hands and not offering to make Stiles look any more fabulous.

"What do you mean? The chapstick, is waxy blob not my color?"

"Not the lip gloss, although chapstick does explain a lot, but getting all dressed up for an, an animal really."

"Allison we're all animals on some level right? But I'm guessing that isn't what you meant."

"Stiles, my family has started showing me videos and art and stuff, they really seem inhuman."

"Excuse me if I don't consider your family a credible source on this topic."

"Why don't you? Because he told you something different?"

"Maybe, but I'll try not to believe him wholesale either okay. I'll keep researching, I'll see if I can find someone else who's neither hunter nor prey, someone objective."

"You think there are objective people who know about all this?" asked Allison doubtfully.

"There might be, we're a global village now, if there's one person out there in the world I can find them."

"Okay, you do that," said Allison packing up her hairbrush and getting ready to depart the restroom.

"And Allison," called Stiles, "tell your aunt to stop breaking into my house or I will tell my father about it."

Allison looked faintly surprised but then she just nodded and left.

Stiles' little moment of bad-assery led to an entire day of stomach cramps while she stressed about Allison dumping Scott because Stiles was a jerk. She stayed away from Scott just to be safe, but then it was lonely. She wished that Derek was there and then tried to imagine him there, she could only really picture his wolf form but that would be awesome. She would look so cool going to classes with her giant wolf pet and they would share secret looks that only she would understand, good times.

She was staring into space like a goober during lunch when Lydia smacked the back of her head. "You haven't updated the readings on your AP Bio project in a week Stilinski, get on that."

So that was her afternoon sorted. She arrived at her field shortly after school got out and was a little surprised by how much it had changed in the few days she had ignored it. Derek showed up after a little while wearing the clothes she had borrowed from her dad. "Hey," she greeted him. "How did you know I was here today?"

"I could hear you, same as always," he answered her.

It was fun doing her field work with Derek's human help. He remembered a lot from his own time in biology class and she was able to get her readings pretty quickly. She took a few pictures but then wasn't sure what to do with the site still looking so wrecked. She plopped down under her usual tree and started digging through her backpack. "I don't think I have anything to eat," she warned from the depths.

"That's okay, I'm not that hungry, are you?"

"No, I'm fine for now. I guess." She wasn't hungry but she didn't know what to do with her hands if she didn't have a pen or a wrapper to play with. They sat quietly for a while, shoulder to shoulder staring down at the little creek that was almost invisible behind the new debris.

"You weren't exaggerating when you said you would never talk that much again were you?"

Derek smiled and shook his head.

"Doofus," complained Stiles as she elbowed him.

"Quiet can be good Stiles, there's a lot to listen to if you just wait. Try it, or don't, I like it when you talk."

"No I can try quiet," insisted Stiles and she carefully closed her mouth. At first she didn't hear anything but then as she waited she started to hear more and more: the wind moving in the trees, the water rushing over the rocks, birds and such. He was right, it was pretty nice and also this was an entire sensory perception she had left out of her field reports. She listened to the birds for a while and thought about trying to record them on her phone so she could play it back in her room and look up what the birds were for her report.

Then she heard the branch snap. It sounded like a shot, but then there was a real shot to remind her what a real shot sounded like, magnitudes louder. Derek threw himself over her. They were crawling around the tree trying to avoid the shots that seemed to be coming from behind them, up the hill somewhere. Derek yanked off the pants and Stiles was suddenly reminded that she hadn't brought him any underwear, he pulled off the shirt too and gave her a really sad face. Then he kissed her quickly, roughly, with too much tongue too fast, before he changed into a wolf and ran away.

The shots changed to follow the wolf and then they stopped entirely. Stiles lay there frozen, waiting for whoever had the gun to come to her. She laid there for a long time and they never came. Finally her alarm went off and she shakily climbed to her feet and then, braver with every step, she walked back to her Jeep. She didn't hear anymore shots but she didn't see Derek again either.

She couldn't go home after so she went to Scott's house and called her dad from there. They made mac and cheese together and ate it on the couch while Stiles' dominated at Jeopardy.

"Want to tell me what's wrong?" asked Scott in his horrifyingly gentle tone that he used with her when he thought she might cry or menstruate on him.

"No," replied Stiles shoving a huge mountain of macaroni and cheese in her mouth. Scott gave up and started eating his with more enthusiasm so he could get seconds before she did.

Stiles wanted to unload, the fears were eating her up inside but if she told Scott that she had been shot at on her field site he would tell her dad and she didn't know how to explain anything to her dad. She didn't want Scott to know about werewolves either, obviously knowing about them put you in danger and she couldn't allow that. Not for Scott or her dad. And maybe Derek had found a way to drag his hurt and bleeding body to her room and was waiting for her to return and bandage his wounds. But maybe he wasn't there and would never be there again and somewhere in the woods the beautiful furry body of a lost wolf would quietly decompose. And he was with his pack again.

Scott pushed a tissue at her and Stiles realized she was bawling into her mac and cheese. Scott carefully took the bowl out of her hands and set it down with his. "Is this a boy thing?" he asked when she just kept crying.

Stiles shrugged a little.

"Is it your Mr. Wolf?"

Stiles decided she could work with that opening, she nodded. "I heard shooting in the woods today and the thought of someone hunting him, of him dying all alone without a pack in the woods, I, I guess I just made myself cry thinking about it."

"What do you mean you heard shooting? How close was it to you?"

"Obviously I'm fine Scott, that isn't the point."

"Obviously your're breaking down Stiles, how close was it?"

"Really really close," admitted Stiles in a small voice.

"Oh my god!" exploded Scott and he scooped her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. "That's it, your project is over. Fail the class, change to something else, I don't care. What if it was you dying all alone in the woods?"

They hugged quietly for a while because Stiles had no response to that. But then Jeopardy ended and a really shitty show came on and Stiles couldn't let that just happen so they disentangled and debated what to watch next, then they heated up the mac and cheese and finished it. Until finally it was time for Stiles to go home, but Scott stopped her at the door, "promise me you won't go back there alone."

Stiles sighed, it was a really reasonable request and he wasn't threatening to tell her dad so she nodded. And when Scott held up his pinky she linked her pinky with it and pinky swore that she would not go back to the field site alone.

"And Stiles, meeting Mr. Wolf there doesn't count as not going alone!" Scott shouted to her as she climbed in her Jeep. She flipped him off and then drove away.

The moon was high and the night was deathly still when something woke her up. When Derek woke her up. Her eyes filled with tears again and she whispered a completely redundant, "you're alive!" into his neck.

"So are you," he whispered back.

They held on tight for a while and then settled into more comfortable positions, Stiles knew that the conversation opener was up to her so she took her time finding the right words except all she could think about was asking Derek what they were going to do now.

"We can't stay like this, it's too dangerous for us," replied Derek starting slowly. "I could leave, go to Idaho like you said and look for a wolf pack. It might be kind of interesting to see what they think of me. I could go for a year or so and then come back; the Argents should be gone again by then. Kate should be at least." He pulled back and looked at Stiles face though, at the tears stuck to her lashes and kissed her softly, "but I don't want to go. So then I guess that means leaving the woods."

"What?" asked Stiles who hadn't really realized that was an option.

"Leave the woods, get like an apartment and some clothes. A job? I don't know, I was hoping you could help with that stuff."

"I could," agreed Stiles, "but are you ready? Will you be okay?"

Derek shrugged, "if not, there's always Idaho."

"I guess so," said Stiles as she turned to go get her laptop and start working on what Derek would need, but he pulled her back to the bed.

"It's late, we can figure it out tomorrow. Does that mean you want me to stay?" he asked with a shy smile.

"Of course I do," replied Stiles.


	4. Chapter 4

When she woke up there was no trace of Derek and she wondered if she had dreamed the whole thing. She spent the day thinking about what Derek would need to be a real boy again and decided to visit Peter Hale after school. Scott had work at the vet clinic and couldn't go with her to the field site anyway (pinky swears with Scott were legally binding in her world). It was weird going to the hospital again, it brought back some pretty horrible memories of her mother's last days but Stiles pushed on.

The gatekeeper at the long term care ward was a slight surprise but Stiles fed her some line about reading to the coma patients for her college applications and the old biddy waved her through. Stiles had her backpack with her but there weren't any novels in there, she wondered if she was going to have to read her biology textbook to Peter Hale and if that would set him back in his recovery or not.

Peter looked surprisingly well, he looked like he was actually slowly recovering. She could tell he was handsome before the fire. His hand was stretched out on top of the blanket near the edge of the bed and Stiles picked it up just to see if it was as warm as Derek's. "Wow," she said, "you run just as hot as this boy I know. My name is Stiles Stilinski Mr. Hale and I'm going to tell you the story of my AP Bio Project."

She held his hand through the whole story and by the end she was pretty convinced that he had turned his body towards her. "So if Mr. Wolf wants to join society again, where do we start? Is there a counselor who can help him? I just don't even know, does he need a fake name? How can I ask him that when his family is all gone?"

Stiles wiped her eyes with the back of the hand that was still holding Peters and the tears trickled across his palm too. Finally she let go and stood up, it was crazy to sit there waiting for a comatose man to tell her what to do next. "You look pretty good Mr. Hale, I'm going to tell my friend to come visit you too." She gathered her bags and wished him well before she left.

Peter heard the soft sound the door made as it swung shut behind her and her footsteps trailing down the hallway. He even heard her conversation with the gatekeeper and her promise to return. Peter felt her tears slowly drying on his hand, his whole hand felt alive from being held by hers. He felt alive just from having her talk to him, and talking to him about Derek, his favorite nephew. How incredible that Derek was alive and able to take a full wolf form. And they had each been alone, so close to each other –right in the same town, and yet so apart. But Stiles would bring Derek to him, Stiles would help them help each other, help them fix their pack.

It was all so exciting, he felt like the moon had just risen after a very long day.

Mrs. McCall saw Stiles in the parking lot and rushed over to see what was going on, which was embarrassing, Stiles didn't injure herself that often. It turned out that Mrs. McCall was working the night shift again so Stiles offered to make dinner for Scott tonight, she picked up some food on her way home and called Scott to invite him over.

Jeopardy had a 'Pets' category that night and Scott dominated it. He gushed for a while about how awesome Dr. Deaton was and how wise, it made something buzz in the back of Stiles' head but she ignored it.

Derek came by in the middle of the night again and she smiled sleepily at him, "I thought I dreamed last night."

"Dream about me often, hm?" asked Derek. Stiles shrugged and tugged him down on the bed with her so they could snuggle and whisper.

"I went to see your uncle today," Stiles had a habit of skipping ahead to the good part. Derek stiffened up next to her and she rubbed his arm. "He didn't look too bad, he seemed peaceful and surprisingly healthy you know for someone who has been in a coma for years. I think you should visit him too."

Derek's body tensed up and then relaxed next to her as if he thought of the idea, resisted it for a minute, and then succumbed. "Okay," he said.

"Derek is there anyone else we can go to? Anyone else in town who knew about our family?"

Derek shrugged, "my mother, she was the alpha, she had an emissary that she consulted with about matters but I don't know who it was. I was too young to know those things."

"I made the best plans for us today," announced Stiles to change the subject and cheer Derek up, "first we pretend that you're my cousin, my cousin Miguel. And you can move into the guest room down the hall. And you can enroll in school and be in my year and we can have every class together."

"Yeah, are you going to be one of those girls that goes to the prom with her cousin?"

"I have long been destined to be the girl at prom with her cousin."

"I don't want to be Miguel and I really don't want to be your cousin."

"Hmm, maybe you can be Scott's cousin Miguel then. I'm afraid I'm really stuck on Miguel though. I can call you Miggy, it's adorable."

Derek growled and Stiles felt it on a subsonic level where her cheek was pressed against his chest.

In the morning Stiles created yet another list in her Wolf Girl field book. Her other field book looked unused and forlorn in comparison and Stiles thought for a minute about talking her dad into visiting the site with her on Saturday except he might see the bullet holes in the trees there and that would be pretty bad. Today's list wasn't goofy names to tease Derek with it was ways to get Mrs. McCall to adopt/take in a teenage boy. Step one, they had to meet.

After school she went to the local thrift shop and bought some clothes for Derek, she decided he could put up with stealing socks from her dad but she got him a fresh pack of underwear at the drugstore. He looked like a boxer guy to her, briefs might be too much after so many years of, um, freedom. While she was at the drugstore she looked at the really cheap cell phones and decided it was worth dipping into her Jeep repair fund to get one for him, mostly because she was already frustrated about calling him.

She went back to her Jeep and sat behind the wheel for a minute, she felt like smoke might come out her ears she was thinking so hard. Finally she started it up and drove out to the forsest. She drove past her usual pull off to the one she had used that one time after the mudslide. Then she stopped again and after a moment of indecision she just leaned on her horn. She smiled because Jeep horns were pretty unique. Deciding that this part might take a while she pulled out some homework and waited.

It took about ten minutes for her to notice the dark wolf slinking in the shadows on the edge of the woods. Stiles just leaned over and opened the passenger door. The wolf hopped in and she finished up her math problem before she turned to him. "So hey there Mr. Wolf. How are you today?"

The wolf had no response so Stiles continued on. "I bought you some clothes and I thought you might want to go visit your uncle. Are you up for that?"

The wolf looked at her and Stiles pointed to the bag in the backseat, "I promise not to peek," she lied.

Derek looked hugely uncomfortable as Stiles led him through the hospital maze to his uncle's room. "I look like an idiot," he growled.

She didn't know his shoe size, how could she have known his shoe size? So she bought him some athletic slides and they would have looked stupid with jeans so she got him some sweat pants, which were also conveniently vaguely sized. The t-shirt was plain and the hoodie was really sweet. Stiles mostly bought the hoodie because if/when Derek hated it she could just take it for herself. It was a dayglow plaid that was probably too loud for him. "He's in a coma Derek, get over it," she hissed.

Once they were in Peter's room Derek's whole attention zoomed in on him. He was at his bedside so fast that Stiles imagined there might have been a small sonic boom. He grabbed at this uncle's hand and the black veins started flying up Derek's arm. Stiles watched it for a minute but when the black veins didn't slow down she was certain that Derek was hurting himself and she tried to pull his arm away. It was really hard to do, she tugged and tugged and finally he became weak enough that she was able to separate them.

Derek looked horrible so she pushed him into the chair and fluttered around getting him water and holding the glass so he could sip it. Finally when she was pretty sure he wasn't going to pass out on the floor she followed his gaze to Peter. His eyes had never left Peter, not since he walked in the room.

"See," said Stiles in a shaky voice, she cleared her throat, "he doesn't look too bad. He looks even better now that you've poured half your life force into him." She sat down heavily in the chair next to his. "Jesus Derek don't do that again, I thought you were going to give him everything."

Derek finally looked over at her, "It was a shock to see pack again. And to see pack hurt…"

"I guess I get that. We can come back tomorrow, maybe if you can do a lot of small helpings. But you said you can't heal others right?"

"No, I can't," and Derek sounded frustrated by that.

They passed Mrs. McCall on their way out and Stiles introduced Derek as Derek Hale, Peter's nephew. "He's been staying with his dad's family since the fire but now he wants to come back to town."

"Oh," said Mrs. McCall, "I'm so sorry for your loss." Because she was a classy babe.

Stiles just smiled and tugged Derek away before he could say much more than thanks.

She drove him back to her house, flipping up his hood and hoping the neighbors would think he was Scott. Her dad was working late again so they ate dinner together in her room and sent each other text messages from two inches apart on the bed.

"You should hide out here," Stiles decided.

"Isn't your father the sheriff?" asked Derek.

"Yeah, that's what makes it so brilliant, who would think to look here?"

"Kate Argent?" asked Derek. Stiles allowed that was a fair point and considered how she might be able to get her dad to change the locks on their house.

The next day he was waiting for her at the new pull off; he was wearing jeans that fit him perfectly, a dark gray Henley and work boots. "I guess I was really off on my clothing selection," Stiles admitted as she looked him over, "clearly you are much better at dressing yourself."

Derek smiled and there was something grown up about it, something that wasn't Mr. Wolf or the boy from before the fire. It made Stiles shiver a little but not in a bad way.

Derek led the way through the halls to Peter's room and pulled the chair up close so he could sit before he grabbed his uncle's hand. Stiles dropped her stuff on the ground and got a glass of water ready for after.

"Did you rob a bank?" she asked when she got tired of sitting there watching Derek watch his uncle with a besotted expression.

"No, I just went to a bank."

"Didn't they think you were dead?"

"Not yet," replied Stiles' father from the doorway. "None of the remains could be identified as Derek so it would have been a seven year wait to declare him dead." The sheriff walked into the room and Stiles pretended to hit him for giving her a heart attack.

Derek shut down like a security door before her eyes. "Looks like you came back just in time son," remarked the sheriff casually.

It wasn't a direct question so Derek didn't respond to it. The sheriff leaned back against the wall, and folded his arms in the classic I'm-not-going-anywhere pose. "Are you planning on staying for a while Derek?"

"Yes sir," replied Derek and he twisted in his chair so that his uncle was behind him and he was facing the sheriff and the exit directly.

"Have you found a place to live?" was the sheriff's next question. "I think there are some lawyers, bankers, and insurance people that will be happy to have you straighten some things out."

"Not yet sir."

"Oh, what have you been doing then?"

"I slept in the woods last night, my family had some little shelters set up for when we were out hunting."

"I suppose that will do for now, the weather's going to start getting colder though."

Derek nodded.

"And what about your days Derek: school, a job?"

Derek looked alarmed, "um school I guess sir. I didn't finish, after the fire. I can ask at the library about adult education classes."

"You don't look old enough for adult education to be frank, but I can understand not wanting to be around screaming teenagers all day."

"We don't all scream dad," Stiles said just to remind the menfolk she was still in the room.

It was a bad idea, her dad focused his laser attention on her. "And how do you fit into this missy?"

"I met Derek in the woods; he told me he was a Hale. I came by myself the first day to see how his uncle was and then I brought Derek here yesterday. We passed Mrs. McCall in the parking lot, but I'm guessing you already know that because she's the one who told you about it and the reason you're here now."

"Melissa is one of my most valuable spies, but don't forget I have many. More than you can imagine, either one of you." The sheriff straightened up and signaled that the interrogation was over, for now.

Stiles and Derek left soon after themselves. As soon as they were in the Jeep Derek turned to her, "did you want your father to find us like that?"

"Maybe, I mean, not exactly but that was better than him finding you in my room, right? But yeah, I wanted you, Derek Hale, to be on his radar. My dad is a good cop, odds were he would have noticed you sooner or later and if the information came to him easily then he won't be so suspicious. And the Argents can't just shoot you on the street now, you're a person and people are protected."

"I'm not really a person Stiles," sighed Derek. "And I don't know how much your father can protect me."

"I don't think you can stop him from trying, or me either."

Stiles parked her Jeep on the side of the road and climbed out. Derek looked at her and she tried to smile winningly. With a huff he turned and stalked off into the woods, Stiles scrambled to follow him.

It was hard to keep up but he stopped and waited at the bottom of the (small) cliff that probably kept his cave so safe. When she got close enough he scooped her up bridal style and carried her to the entrance. "Almost plunge to my death once and that's it huh?" asked Stiles trying to save a little face.

"Why are you here?" asked Derek.

"I don't know, I guess I just wanted to see if this was where you were still staying. Make sure you got here okay…"

"Stiles, I'm going to have to take you back to your car now so that's a really stupid reason."

Stiles shrugged and looked to see if there were any granola bars left. After grabbing one she settled down near the entrance where the sun was the warmest and pulled out her math homework. Derek sat next to her, close enough so she could feel the heat coming off his thighs, and said nothing.

They did the same thing the next day except the sheriff didn't show up at the hospital and as Stiles ate the last granola bar she grew suddenly sad. Derek was wearing the same clothes as the day before and she tried to imagine him carefully taking them off and storing them in a bag before he curled up to sleep on his old blanket in his wolf form. She didn't want him to sleep alone in a cave anymore.

"Come on," she announced, dusting off her hands. "Let's go find you an apartment."

"I sort of have one already," Derek replied from where he was watching her.

"Then why are we here?" asked Stiles, confused.

Derek shrugged, "I still like it here."

Stiles pushed him and gathered up her things, going to wait for him at the edge, "show me." She demanded. Derek shrugged and then half transformed again, he hadn't done it since that first time and she snickered a little at his sideburns. Derek growled and she started to laugh harder, he flashed his eyes at her and brought up his sharp and furry hands in the classics I will now hunt you pose, Stiles shrieked but there was nowhere to hide as he scooped her up and rushed her to her car.

He directed her mostly by pointing to upcoming turns and she arrived in a downtown part of town. They were just on the edge of the business district and the manufacturing part, such as it was, when he told her to park near a tall brick building that had been converted to fancy lofts about ten years ago. "My sister Laura bought a loft here. I guess our executor has been paying the taxes on it since the key seems to still work and there's no one else living in it."

"Nice," said Stiles as she followed him to the door. "I can find out who that executor is, if you don't know. But it seems like you should know, do you?"

Derek shook his head no and kept leading her into the building. When they finally reached the loft it was furnished in a way that Stiles thought might even be Derek's style –in that it was pretty empty and cavernous. She giggled a little and Derek gave her a curious look but she didn't elaborate.

"Do you have food?" asked Stiles drifting to the kitchen.

"Not really," mumbled Derek following her and watching as she opened cabinets and inspected the fridge. "You need to get your power turned on," she observed when the little light didn't come on.

"I know, I wasn't sure how though."

"We'll figure it out." Stiles assured him. "Let's go get a pizza and bring it back, it feels like we should celebrate."

Stiles had a long to do list for herself by the time she left that night: she was going to find out who the executor was, figure out how to get the power on, find a job for Derek, find out about school for Derek, buy groceries for Derek, maybe find a laptop for Derek, get Derek some wifi, maybe that all in one cable package she saw all the commercials for… Her dad unfortunately saw her list while she was making dinner.

"So, Derek has an apartment huh?" he said as he looked over Stiles' list and made some notes on it. "He doesn't know who the executor is? It's Dr. Deaton, Scott's boss."

"Really? That seems kind of random doesn't it?"

"I guess it does to us, but I didn't know their family very well," replied her father in a reasonable tone.

After dinner, which Stiles didn't eat much of because of the pizza, she sent a text to Derek telling him his executor was Dr. Deaton and she even included Deaton's home phone number which she found in the phone book for him. She waited sixty seconds and when nothing happened she texted again, a chirpy little, 'keep me updated', and then put her phone away and tried to concentrate on her homework.

She didn't get a reply until after school the next day when Derek wrote and asked her for a ride to the vet's office. Stiles checked to make sure Scott was at lacrosse practice and not working before she agreed. The last thing she needed was Scott wondering who Derek was and how Stiles knew him. Especially not when Lydia was still staring at her across parking lots and trying to figure out who Stiles had kissed in the woods that afternoon.

For a moment Stiles was going to ask if she was picking him up in the woods or at the loft and then she decided to just drive to the loft. She was so busy making sure there wasn't a black SUV following her that she was shocked to see Lydia pull into the spot behind her. Derek must have been waiting for her in the lobby because he materialized as a looming presence behind Stiles even as Lydia was angrily slamming her door shut and stalking over.

Lydia barely faltered but Stiles noticed, she reached blindly behind herself to try and stop Derek from growling audibly. "Derek, this is my friend Lydia, she's the one who sent us the cookies that day."

"Yes, for your romantic little rendezvous in the woods," clarified Lydia with a brittle smile.

"Thank you, they were delicious," said Derek and it only sort of sounded like it was cutting his throat to say it.

Lydia looked at him intently and Stiles held her breath. Finally she realized that neither of them was going to say anything else and it was up to her to break this up. "Derek texted me asking for a ride, so that's why I'm here, and we should probably get going."

"Hmm," said Lydia. "Text me when you get home later."

"Um, I don't actually have your phone number Lydia," Stiles told her.

Lydia looked briefly surprised by that and then she held out her hand, never taking her eyes off of Derek. Stiles fumbled in her pocket and then slapped her phone into Lydia's palm. Still not taking her eyes off of Derek Lydia punched a bunch of numbers in and then held the phone up for Stiles to take it back. Stiles plucked it out of her hand and stared at the number, what was her life now? A few weeks ago she could not have imagined Lydia Martin giving her her own personal cell phone number, or following her to what, see if she was okay? For a moment werewolves were not the most farfetched thing in her life.

And then Lydia nodded to her and stalked back to her car. She seemed to be waiting to make sure that Stiles and Derek really were going somewhere and not having a tryst in the warehouse behind them so Stiles got in and Derek followed. She easily headed off in the direction of the vet's office and Derek mumbled something about her knowing the way.

"My friend Scott, you saw him that once, he works for Dr. Deaton so I know the way." Derek nodded and looked nervous.

"Do you know Dr. Deaton?" asked Stiles and Derek shook his head no. "Do you know why he would be the executor then?" Derek shrugged and they continued in silence until they reached the office.

Dr. Deaton was expecting Derek and he seemed briefly surprised to see Stiles but he recovered quickly and opened the little swinging door to lead them to his office. He shook Derek's hand warmly and gazed at him for a long time, "Derek, it's very good to see you alive."

They all sat down and Dr. Deaton looked at Stiles, "Miss Stilinski, how did you meet Derek?"

"He was a big wolf that kept visiting my AP bio field site." Derek jumped and Dr. Deaton sat back with a loud screeching noise from his chair. "Please," said Stiles, "obviously you know, why else would you be the executor? Plus, you're a vet and they're a family of werewolves. Did you help deliver Derek?"

Dr. Deaton smiled, "Talia would have your head for that, she didn't need any help from me for things like that. My position in the pack was as emissary –not doctor. I was kind of an advisor."

"I never heard anyone talk about you sir," said Derek in an apologetic sort of way.

"No Derek, that doesn't surprise me, anonymity was an important part of my protection." Derek seemed satisfied with that response and he relaxed a bit.

"So you achieved the full wolf transformation?" the vet asked Derek, Derek nodded. "And you held that shape from the fire until now, more or less?" Derek nodded again. "That's very impressive. And Miss Stilinski managed to draw you back to humanity?" Derek shrugged uncomfortably and Stiles blushed. Dr. Deaton didn't seem to need a response to that question.

"Have you visited Peter?" he asked and Derek nodded again. "Are you trying to heal him?" Stiles nodded when Derek looked awkwardly away. "That's good, he's been healing slowly and knowing that he has pack left will help. So will taking away his pain for a while, it might give him more lucid moments, more time to gather himself. He could wake up entirely by the next full moon, it wouldn't surprise me."

Dr. Deaton and Derek both seemed pleased by the thought of Peter waking up. They paused for a moment and Stiles felt a pang of jealousy that they knew Peter and she didn't. But maybe she would soon.

"Derek has moved in to Laura's loft," Stiles finally said when the silence got to be too much for her.

Dr. Deaton nodded, "that's good. I'll arrange to have the utilities turned on again. You'll need money too, for food and clothes. I'll get you set up with a debit card, maybe we can meet again and I'll go over the finances with you?"

"That sounds good," said Stiles, "Derek needs a computer too so he can finish up his high school diploma and figure out what to do next."

"It shouldn't be a problem Miss Stilinski." Stiles looked awkwardly at Derek to see if he was giving her the angry face of doom for being a bossy pants but he seemed okay with it. She thought they might talk about more details or something but it looked like the men felt enough had been done for one day. Stiles herself was anxious to go before Scott showed up for work, she wasn't looking forward to coming up with a lie to explain Derek to Scott.

Nervously she stood up and brushed her hands on her jeans. "So, can you float us a loan for grocery money until you get that debit card worked out?"

"I can do that, some of Laura's belongings were put in storage too. I'll arrange to have them delivered, unless you'd rather get a key and go yourself?"

"Meh, the Jeep isn't ideal for carting around stuff, can you have it delivered?"

Dr. Deaton nodded, "You'll need a car of your own Derek, the Camaro is also in storage."

"Really?" asked Derek and his voice sounded younger than Stiles had ever heard it.

Dr. Deaton smiled at him, "do you have a license?" Derek's face fell but Stiles wasn't going to allow him to lose that happiness she had heard. "I can take care of that, I'll work something out with my dad to get you your license."

Deaton pulled a wad of cash out of his desk, and without even checking to see how much it was he handed it to Derek. "Take care of yourself Derek, I'll give you a call when things are set." Dr. Deaton seemed to take a lot of care in opening doors and leading them out but they escaped before Scott pedaled up.

"Hospital or grocery store?" asked Stiles and Derek paused for a moment.

"Can we do a quick visit to the hospital and then the grocery store?"

"Of course," said Stiles, "but don't tucker yourself out too much, grocery shopping is exhausting too."

As they unloaded groceries later that night Stiles finally worked up the courage to ask Derek if he was going to tell Dr. Deaton about Kate Argent and what she had done. Derek didn't answer her, Stiles was starting to get used to that.


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles' life became strangely domestic in the next week or so. She carted Derek around most days after school and when Laura's stuff was delivered Derek let her help him set it all up. Somehow she managed to keep up on all of her homework except for the field site project. She just couldn't bring herself to ask Derek about going back there, he seemed to be trying so hard to be a real boy, even suffering the indignity of getting a library card to check out a bunch of GED review books.

Eventually her dad noticed how she was carting Derek all around and decided to take charge of Derek getting his driver's license. He scheduled a review session for the two of them on Saturday and told Stiles to go do something for herself, something 'girlie'. Stiles was flummoxed for a moment, then she realized she actually had the cell phone numbers for the two most popular girls in her year: Allison and Lydia. But she decided against calling either of them and instead packed up her backpack for a day at the field site. She didn't mention it to her dad though because he might mention it to Derek and she was pretty sure Derek didn't want her to go back there alone. Surely the hunters must have given up on it by now though, and the pinkie swear had expired.

It was quiet at the site without Mr. Wolf. Somehow, Stiles realized, the wolf had been friendlier than Derek actually was as a person. Granted they both talked about the same amount, but Mr. Wolf would wag his tail for Stiles more and the wolf definitely smiled more. Stiles found herself smiling just remembering Mr. Wolf.

Shrugging off the strangeness of being alone, she tried to figure out what to do with her site. It was still so damaged from the mudslide but she tried to ignore that aspect and got to work on collecting her samples and doing all the other work she had neglected for a week. Stiles was half expecting something to happen so she wasn't surprised when Kate Argent showed up. "Oh hey, super," said Stiles in her most distracted way, "can you hold this tape measure for me?"

Either Kate was actually a human being in there or Stiles just caught her off balance, but she did hold the tape measure and Stiles was able to finish up what she was doing before Kate brought up her reason for being there, round-aboutly. "You've been neglecting your field work," Kate observed.

They were close enough to the tree that Stiles could point to the gouges in the bark the bullets had left. "Yeah, well, have you seen these? I wasn't too eager to come back alone after that but I also wasn't keen on letting my dad see them and forbid me from ever coming back. It's kind of funny because I've wondered how far I would go for a good grade, like I wouldn't cheat but would I do something dangerous? Apparently yes. But, god, as soon as this project is in the low 90's range I'm calling it a day. Good enough. Right?"

"That would probably be a good idea Stiles. How far from the low 90's would you say you are right now?"

"I should come back next week and take these measurements again, and then maybe the week after. But just those two days –not the hours I used to spend here every day. Does that seem reasonable?"

"It does, I can respect a young person who wants to do well in school."

"I don't suppose you want to come and help me next week? You are kind of a presence."

"I believe I'm getting my hair done next week," scoffed Kate.

"I'll have to ask Allison then," smiled Stiles.

Kate nodded and turned to go, Stiles scrambled to keep up with her.

She thought about taking a shower before she saw Derek later but really, they had barely touched each other, how much Kate could he possibly smell? Enough was the answer.

The sheriff was working but he had left Derek at casa Stilinski so he could keep Stiles company during dinner. She was making meatloaf and amused herself by tossing little balls of raw meat at Derek who caught them all in his mouth and swallowed them down with a grin. "Ick, I am not kissing you now," laughed Stiles after she watched him eat a rather large ball.

Derek gave her a doubtful look. "Alright probably but it would be less gross if you rinsed and spit first." Derek took a long swallow of his water and swished it around obnoxiously. Stiles laughed at him and tried to concentrate on getting the meatloaf in the oven.

"So how was driving?" she asked as the oven door finally slammed closed and Derek crowded in close beside her.

"It was pretty good, I knew how before and it all came back pretty easily. Your dad is nice, he was patient and stuff."

"Yeah, I'll have to take your word for it. We couldn't even make eye contact when I was learning to drive. He's nicer to other kids than he is to me."

"It's because he loves you so much," Derek told her.

"Yeah, let's go with that. Not that I'm exhausting in my flailiness."

"Flailiness?" asked Derek.

"You know, the way I'm always such a spazz about things and how I geek out and get totally engrossed. I made a working model of a transmission with junk from the potting shed so that I could picture it in my head. I get like that."

"And you think your dad doesn't appreciate that?"

"I think intellectually he can admire it but in reality it's not that cool."

"No, it's that cool," insisted Derek.

"What are you basing that on?" asked Stiles dubiously.

"The wolf wall, that thing was sexy. To be the focus of that much obsession, it was very sexy."

"Not creepy?"

"Nope, not. It was good clean scientific inquiry at its best."

"And scientific inquiry is sexy?" Stiles clarified.

Derek nodded, "I grew up with people that were naturally gifted in strength and speed so I probably don't get as excited about that as others do, but smarts –intellect, that's very sexy."

"Hmm," said Stiles, "I guess that makes sense. It would be kind of nice if more people appreciated smarts as sexy."

"They do, your intellect just isn't tuned to notice it yet."

"What does that mean?" asked Stiles who wasn't sure he was saying what she thought he was saying.

"I'm saying that you are sexy and lots of other boys think so but you haven't noticed them yet."

"That's what I thought you were saying but it doesn't make sense."

Derek just smiled and leaned down slowly to kiss her again. It was so slow and sweet that she forgot to be grossed out. He froze though and turned to sniff at her hair more deeply, "you've been in the woods," he growled.

"Yeah, at the site, I haven't finished my project yet and you know, that sexy scientific inquiry thing I have going on."

"It's dangerous there, you shouldn't go alone."

"Going alone is safer than going with you," said Stiles which was rude and cold but true. Derek knew it was because he closed his eyes and shrank in front of her.

"Oh Derek, you know I didn't mean it like that. But look, I'm safe. Nothing happened."

"You weren't alone though were you," asked Derek sniffing again.

"Kate Argent showed up, I know her because my friend Scott is going out with her niece Allison. She was fine, she even helped me get some measurements. Nobody was going to shoot at me with Kate standing next to me."

"Maybe not, but Kate could shoot you herself."

"Please, the sheriff's daughter? My father would hunt her down forever."

"You would still be dead," said Derek and he didn't have to add how much that simple fact would destroy her father, or him.

"Sorry, next week I'm going to see if I can get Scott's girlfriend Allison to come with me. She won't shoot me and I don't think people will risk shots that might hit her."

Derek didn't seem appeased.

"You want to come with me don't you?" Stiles' voice had gone high with the flattery. "We could disguise you maybe, cut your hair super short and dye it blonde. Put some glasses on you, that worked for Clark Kent."

"You'd better be kidding about cutting my hair," growled Derek and Stiles had to run her hands through it. Derek's hair was kind of nice, it was thick and wavy and now that he had access to a shower it was really pretty nice. Of course all of Derek was really pretty nice, somehow living in the woods eating bunnies had given him perfect teeth and good skin too. And really? He dug smarts?

"I think Peter is going to wake up soon," Derek told her as they were mashing the potatoes to go with the meatloaf. Stiles was really enjoying having someone to cook with her and eat with her, she had even dug out aprons for them to wear while playing house.

"Mm, Deaton said full moon, right?" replied Stiles as she stuck her finger in the potatoes and ate some.

"Yeah, I kind of hope he wakes up before then."

"Why? Will he wake up in that half-transformed state and go on a killing rampage?" asked Stiles in a jokesy manner.

Derek looked uncomfortable and mashed the potatoes a little more.

"Oh my god, I didn't think… Do you? I mean, I guess something must happen because there are hunters. It was stupid of me to assume there wouldn't be any gray areas… Derek have you ever become a werewolf werewolf?"

"What is that supposed to mean Stiles?" asked Derek grumpily.

"You know, have you ever been out of your mind and gone on a killing rampage?"

Derek carefully put the potato masher down and stepped away from it, crossing his arms defensively before he turned to answer Stiles. "I guess I can't say. I was alone for a long time and if I went on a rampage there was nobody to tell me. But I don't think I did, the early months really, are kind of hazy but I think being in the wolf form protected me. The wolf simplified things and I didn't feel any anger, just loneliness really."

"Will Peter turn into a wolf?" asked Stiles hopefully, surprised that a giant wolf was probably safer than the half-man half-beast form.

"I don't think he can, it's a rare gift. I've never seen him do it."

"Could you do it before the fire?" asked Stiles curiously.

Derek just shook his head no. Cautiously, because that had been kind of an insensitive question, Stiles reached out for his arm and rubbed it gently. She made the executive decision that all further talk should be held until they got dinner plated because it was all hot now. But as soon as Derek had eaten two giant pieces of meatloaf she started talking again, if only to save some leftovers for her dad.

"So, we need to watch Peter. We can leave your cell phone number with the night nurse and ask her to call you if he starts to wake. That plan is not ideal because it could put the nurse in danger.

We can hide a mini camera in his room and you can watch him yourself from the loft and then run over there if he starts to wake.

We can hide the mini camera in the room and you can watch from the parking lot.

We can hide you in the bushes outside his window and you can just listen.

We can tell them we think he's waking and demand that they let us start sleeping there.

-See Derek that are like dozens of options, what do you like?"

Derek seemed a little surprised by all the ideas, he grabbed up her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist, "I think I like listening outside his window."

Stiles huffed and pouted, "sure pick the one that doesn't require me to buy cool new tech."

They went together to visit Peter the next day and Derek carefully broke the lock on the window so he would be able to open it from the outside. Then he went outside and Stiles sat near Peter's bed talking to him softly so they could check to make sure Derek could hear from wherever he decided to hide. Stiles jumped a foot when Derek walked up behind her and said it was all good. He had found a good spot and practiced scaling the wall and climbing in through the window, just to be sure.

On the way home Stiles thought of more problems, "Okay Derek, so your uncle is going to wake up and be fine isn't he? Like his werewolf healing will have taken care of any muscle atrophy won't it?"

Derek nodded. "See, that's a huge problem. I mean first nobody wakes up really after they have been in a coma for years, and then second anyone who does has months of physical therapy."

"So what are we supposed to do Stiles?" asked Derek, and it wasn't even pissy, it was like he just assumed she had the answer.

"I guess just try to convince him to pretend he's a little bit weak still and we'll try to check him out and into your care."

"I can do that," said Derek.

"Yeah, because it's so reasonable to sign him out like that, oh maybe Deaton will help."

Stiles mumbled and planned the rest of the way to the loft and Derek just smiled at her. Growing up as a werewolf his family had taught him that most people avoided the supernatural, they would write off whatever they could just so that they didn't have to entertain the impossible. Stiles was definitely not most people, she was a rare one who saw a shadow in the night and walked towards it to try and understand better. If her dad's scanner announced a body in the woods in the middle of the night Stiles would absolutely be there with a flashlight and her buddy Scott.

He was glad she knew about his kind because he could not have hidden anything from her for long, and now he had all her resources working on his side. He needed to figure out how to tell her though that she was giving everyone else way too much credit, nobody was going to be as suspicious as she was.

Peter woke up at moonrise on the night before the full moon. Derek heard him start moving around about fifteen minutes early and snuck into his room. Peter was disoriented at first Derek reported but he settled down once he recognized Derek. Derek stayed there all night talking to him. And Stiles felt like she had done something right with her life.

She texted Derek a lot from school the next day and learned that Peter was going to take care of handling the hospital staff. He didn't mind taking his time and pretending to wake up slowly over the next week or so and then attending a few physical therapy sessions and getting himself eventually signed out to Derek's care.

Stiles was deeply relieved, she immediately insisted that they visit him after school to keep everything authentic. Derek agreed and she picked him up after school to head over. It was after she had parked her Jeep that she noticed Scott locking up his bike in the parking lot too. She tried to crawl underneath her Jeep but it was too late, Scott was marching over with an extremely suspicious face and his eyes were locked on Derek, and Stiles. His eyes were looking a little crazy.

"Hey Scotty," she started brightly and he gave her a filthy look which shut down any brightness. "This is my new friend Derek. He just moved back to town and I've been giving him rides until he gets his driver's license sorted out. My father is helping him with that, my father has met Derek and even invited him for dinner the other night."

Scott turned to face Derek and stuck out his hand in his friendly puppy way, "I'm Scott, Stiles' friend."

Derek shook his hand solemnly, "I've heard a lot about you," he said.

"That's weird because I haven't heard anything at all about you," Scott replied while trying to shoot laser beams at Stiles with his eyes. Derek looked startled, but it wasn't his fault.

"Buddy," Stiles tried to soothe, "I guess I owe you a phone call tonight."

"Stiles you talked to me on Skype for an hour last night and we sat next to each other in lunch and study hall today. You had opportunity."

Stiles blushed and that seemed to work the best for her. "Oh, I see," said Scott. "Yeah, call me tonight –no wait, I'm here to get my mom's car because Allison and I are going to see some art film. Then I have to pick my mom up at the end of her shift around eleven so don't call me, I'll catch you tomorrow."

"Sounds good," she replied weakly and they watched Scott head off to get his mom's car.

"You never mentioned me at all?" asked Derek with a hurt face.

"I was going to," stammered Stiles, "I was just waiting so there would be a buffer period between me yammering about Mr. Wolf and me yammering about you. I didn't want him to jump to the conclusion you guys were the same."

"Who would jump to that conclusion Stiles? Okay, you would, I see that now, but seriously, don't worry about these things, nobody else makes the same leaps you do."

Stiles decided it was nice to meet Peter as she sat and watched Derek talk to his uncle. Derek looked really happy, he was like almost pathetically happy just to have one uncle left. Stiles tried to imagine losing her whole world like that, it wasn't too hard really –one tragic car accident could easily take out her dad and Scott and Mrs. McCall.

Peter was more charming than she expected but maybe that's why Dr. Deaton and Derek were so excited about him waking. Because he was charming and they wanted to hang with him again. Stiles was a little alarmed by how quickly she was becoming unnecessary, soon Derek would be getting his license and his uncle would move into the loft with him and Stiles would just go back to being a flaily girl, too young for Derek's real age.

"Stiles?" Derek asked, catching her attention and giving her a concerned look. Stiles blushed and tried to pay attention to whatever they were talking about, but Peter was staring at her now. She felt suddenly self-conscious, Paige had been really pretty. Pretty and soft in a way that Stiles hadn't reached yet, not when she was all elbows and knees and stupidly short hair. She could see those same words reflected in Peter's eyes, 'elbows, knees, stupidly short hair.' Suddenly the room was suffocating and she stood up to leave, except she was Derek's ride.

Eventually it was time to go, and as bad as Stiles felt about tearing Derek away from his uncle she was ready to fly out of her skin for some reason. "It's the moon," Derek told her when they were parked outside his loft. "I think you're picking up on the stress that the lunar cycle brings us."

"But you and your uncle seemed so calm, and happy to see each other."

"My uncle is almost never what he looks like. I think this full moon is scaring him."

"It's strange to think that I'm hanging out with lunatics. I'm weirded out about Scott too, we don't usually keep things from each other. And you're a pretty big thing, I mean, not to let it all go to your head, but for me you're a really big thing."

Derek smiled proudly, "I want to be a big thing for you."

It wasn't that Stiles had lo-jacked her best friend, she had the potential to be that girl but she fought it really hard, it was just the Scott had said they were going to a foreign film and there weren't that many around so Stiles had extrapolated and added in a few minutes for necking and driving Allison home and so there she was waiting for Scott in the hospital parking lot when he came to return his mom's car. She was a bit early, but it was really hard to estimate necking time correctly.

Scott was originally going to just wait for the end of his mom's shift but he hopped in the Jeep instead. "Hey Stiles," he said and tried to not look too kissed.

"If you're trying to look like you weren't just involved in the champion match of tonsil hockey you're failing."

Scott smiled but didn't engage. Stiles pulled out of the parking lot not sure where she was going, she needed to tell Scott about Derek but not everything about him. Not the family secrets things, finally she realized she was driving out near the woods, which was creepy but also private so she went with it.

They parked and climbed out onto the hood of the Jeep to talk in the moonlight. "So Derek is Derek Hale, of the Hale house fire Hales" Stiles started and pointed up the road in the direction of the burnt out house that Scott vaguely remembered. "He heard that his uncle was coming out of his coma and came back to town to see him. I met him in the woods when I was working on my field site and we got to talking. I ended up giving him a few rides around town, helping him get settled."

"Is that all?" asked Scott.

"Not all of the all, that's most of the all. We've kissed a few times too."

"Why Stiles, I had no idea you partook of the tonsil hockey."

"Shut up Scott. This is hard enough when you're so deeply soul bonded with Allison."

"Stiles, are you in luurrrve?"

She leaped off the Jeep to chase him around and Scott darted into the woods to escape. They ran for a little bit, never getting too far from the Jeep but feeling safe in the bright moonlight. Until suddenly the moonlight didn't feel safe at all.

There was a rushing noise, like a train was blowing through the clearing. And a snarl, a deep vibrating snarl that seemed to go on forever. "Derek?" asked Stiles.

Scott looked around for the other boy but had no idea who Stiles was calling to, and then he saw a pair of red eyes burning like fire just in the shadow of a tree. If they were down low, near the ground, he would have been scared shitless that it was a wolf, that it was Mr. Wolf, but they were about six –maybe seven, feet above the ground. So unless Mr. Wolf had climbed a tree it was something even scarier. Bigfoot? Chupacabra?

He started pulling on Stiles' arm to lead her back to the Jeep as fast as they could stumble. Stiles was with him on the retreat but as they ran the growling seemed to get louder and closer. And then there was that noise like a freight train again and something pushed Stiles so she went flying and landed in a heap. She scrambled quickly to her feet and looked around for Scott, he was moaning back where she had been standing. His hand was clamped to his side and in the silvery moonlight she could see dark liquid seeping around his fingers.

"Scott!" she screamed and started lurching back towards him, oblivious for the moment of the dark shape that was watching her. Until the growling started again. The noise made her freeze but only for a moment and then she was at Scott's side again and positioning herself between him and the shape.

"Who are you?" she demanded, although her voice shook. The creature didn't seem capable of answering. Stiles tried to pull together all of her bravery, "I am friends with Derek Hale, you had better leave now." She pointed off into the woods, "go on, get while the getting's good."

The creature roared, it was the loudest sound she had ever heard a creature make. And he did it right at her, but then it turned and disappeared off into the woods. Stiles stood there for as long as her knees would hold her, which was about five more seconds and then she collapsed next to Scott. Scott wasn't dead yet, and although he was in pain and freaking out, the bite wasn't acting like a normal fatal wound. Stiles called Derek.

Derek arrived in about two minutes, which Stiles was too frazzled to be suspicious about. First she threw herself into Derek's arms and then she threw herself out again so she could drag Derek closer to Scott and have him look at the bite.

"Why are you here?" asked Derek as he held Scott's hand and the black veins went crawling up his arms.

"I wanted to tell him how we met, my Jeep is parked on the road and we were talking and goofing and then we chased each other into the woods." Now that Derek was here Stiles felt the situation sinking in and she felt herself sliding into hysteria. Derek gently squeezed Stiles' hand with his free one.

"There was a creature, it sounded like a freight train and it had red eyes. It growled, a long continuous growl thing and then it chased us and it threw me to one side but it bit Scott. Is he going to die Derek, is he?"

"What?" asked Scott, "I don't feel like I'm dying."

"I don't think you are Scott. You have the bite now but it looks like you'll be okay."

"The bite, what does the bite mean?" asked Scott as he reached out with his free hand to grab Stiles's free hand, so now they looked like they were ready to play ring around the rosie in the woods at night beneath the full moon. "The full moon," Scott repeated to himself, "was that a werewolf?"

Stiles nodded sadly at him.

"Stiles, I was joking. Werewolves aren't real."

Derek tugged on Scott's hand so that he turned to him and then he slowly and carefully shifted. "They are real Scott," whispered Stiles.

Scott assumed he was hallucinating, which seemed like a reasonable assumption. He attributed it to blood loss and considered what would happen to him next. Derek's voice startled him but then he saw that the monster was gone and the hard-looking teenage boy was back. "Stiles, I can carry him to your Jeep. We can bring him somewhere to get cleaned up."

"Are you sure he'll be okay?" asked Stiles.

Derek looked away and Scott was reminded of the dogs at the vet's office –the ones who didn't want to be there and how they could never meet his eyes. Scott awkwardly cleared his throat and tried to sit up a little. "I'm fine Stiles, look –not dead."

Derek helped Scott to his feet and wordlessly pulled his arm over his shoulder, Scott was grateful, he didn't want to be carried by Derek in front of Stiles. Actually Stiles looked like maybe she should be carried.

Stiles felt pretty faint but she pushed it all back for the minute and focused on getting back to the Jeep. Once they reached it Stiles and Derek carefully arranged Scott in the tiny backseat and then had a staring contest to decide who was stable enough to drive. Derek won and decided to drive them back to his loft. Stiles didn't seem to notice where they were until they pulled up outside and then she didn't comment, just helped to pull Scott out of the backseat.

Scott took a shower and Derek gave him some of the sheriff's clothes to wear. "You're definitely not dying," he observed as he taped a bunch of paper towels to Scott's side. Stiles glared at his pathetic first aid job and Derek just shrugged at her.

"Werewolves have healing powers Scott, that's why Derek doesn't have a first aid kit or even a stinking band aid anywhere in this huge loft."

"And Scott's going to be a werewolf now so this will work just fine."

Scott found himself agreeing with Derek, "It does seem to be mostly healed already. Hey, how are you Stiles?"

Derek whipped around to look at Stiles too, "were you hurt?" he asked shouldering past Scott and closer to her.

"What? Hurt? Nah, not really." Stiles protested but Derek was actually tugging at her sleeves and inspecting her hands and arms already. He found a long scratch along her neck and a little torn skin on one elbow. While Derek scrutinized her minor wounds Stiles protested, "There was no point in mentioning them since you don't even have a band aid here."

Derek gave her a dirty look while he drew the pain out from her elbow. "Oh nice, you're pain draining my scratch while Scott has a massive bite wound over there."

"Pain drain?" asked Scott.

"Derek can suck out the owies and make them go bye-bye," explained Stiles. "Hey, will Scott be able to do that too?"

"Yes, I can teach him," said Derek.

"There's a lot he's going to need to learn isn't there?" asked Stiles.

Derek glanced back at Scott and nodded.

"Do you know who bit him? Is that person his alpha now?"

Derek looked intensely uncomfortable. "He was bitten by an alpha, only an alpha can turn somebody. But I don't know who the alpha was, it could have been someone passing through or something. You might want to warn your friend Allison."

"Allison?!" shrieked Scott, "what does she have to do with anything?"

"Hey Scotty, why don't we go sit on Derek's nice new couch. I have a funny story to share."

Scott did not think it funny at all that his darling precious Allison was part of a werewolf hunting family and he was now a werewolf.

"Normally I don't like the Argents at all, no except for Allison, I never like the Argents at all, but if there is an alpha werewolf in the area out of control enough to bite people like this, then they should probably try to put it down."

"Am I going to go out of control like that?" asked Scott.

"A little bit at first probably," said Derek, "but I can help. I can keep you contained until you find an anchor, something to keep you sane during the full moon."

"Why do I not like the sound of that contained? What do you mean Derek?" asked Stiles.

"My family had um, cells, under our house for safety during the full moon. But it doesn't take long to find an anchor. They're like precautionary."

"Your family had precautionary cells built under their house?" asked Stiles.

"Your whole family was werewolves?" asked Scott.

"Yes and no. Yes we had cells, no they weren't all werewolves. Most of my blood relatives were but they sometimes married people that weren't. My sisters and I were born werewolves, our mother was our alpha."

"It must have been so cool," breathed Stiles.

Derek shrugged, "it was all I knew, I couldn't really tell."

A clock bonged somewhere and Scott jumped a little. "That was loud," he remarked.

"All of your senses will be a little haywire at first but they should settle down."

"Scotty, you were just bitten by a radioactive wolf. You're going to have superpowers, remember to be responsible."

Eventually they went home and after Stiles had dropped Scott off, after she had peeled off her clothes and taken a quick shower, but not before she climbed under her covers, Derek knocked softly at her window. Cursing herself for choosing just an old t-shirt as pajamas tonight she walked over to let him in.

Derek didn't seem to mind the pajama choice. His hand was on her hip, fingers warm against her skin, almost before he was all the way in the room. "Hey," he greeted her softly. "I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

"I don't think I am," she whispered and he led her over to her bed. He tucked her in and then stretched out next to her on top of the blankets.

"That monster was really terrifying, with the red eyes and all. I knew right away that it wasn't you, you're never that scary. Not to me.

And then it just tossed me aside and took a chomp of my friend…"

Derek stretched an arm out and Stiles curled in closer to him. "He's really not going to die?"

"I don't think he is, it seemed to be healing, right?"

"Right," agreed Stiles. "Because he's my best friend, for a long time he was my only friend, and if anything ever," she choked. And Derek held her even closer as she sobbed for a while.


	6. Chapter 6

In the morning Scott seemed to be as right as rain even though Stiles looked like something the cat had dragged through the rain. She had slept pretty well considering but the side of her face was scratched and raw, and her elbow was throbbing. Her ankle hurt too but she thought she was covering that up.

Derek noticed it though, he was waiting for her outside of the school with a cup of coffee and a muffin. He handed over the food without a word but he gave her scrapes a dirty look and rubbed his thumb gently over her cheek. "I was thinking," he started as Stiles hopped up on a wall near him and dug into her muffin.

"Maybe I should enroll here."

"You? All 21 Jump Street? I can't see it ."

"Scott will be dangerous for a while and I should stay close, make sure he doesn't hurt anyone."

"I'm not sure how feasible that is Derek, what year would you be? How would you get in his classes? Plus, I'm already with him most of the day, I can call you if anything happens."

"It will take me a while to get here."

"Yeah sure, you'll probably be lurking in the parking lot."

"I was thinking of the woods actually."

"It's too bad your wolf forms doesn't look anything like a German Shepherd Dog, we could put a harness on you and I could pretend I was training you for the blind, or to be a police dog. Actually, we could probably do that."

"Your father would hear about it."

"So, that just means I can take you home with me too." Derek gave her a rather flat look. "Okay, the bell's going to ring in half a minute now, so how about this. I keep an eye on Scott today and we see how it goes. If it goes poorly I'll help you get enrolled tomorrow."

Derek nodded and brushed a crumb off the corner of her mouth, "I'll stay close." He gave her a quick kiss and then the bell rang and she had to run off.

A buzzing seemed to follow Stiles from class to class and through the halls. At lunch Allison gave her a very unimpressed look, "I can't believe you let him on school property Stiles. Do you think that's a good idea?"

"He used to go here Allison with no issues," replied Stiles.

"I wouldn't say no issues, I heard there was one."

"Derek hasn't hurt anybody, look to your own house Allison."

Scott joined them about halfway through and immediately looked distressed. They hadn't really discussed telling Allison about Scott, Stiles figured they would have to but maybe not right away, maybe after he found that anchor thing.

"Allison, Derek was probably here because of me. He's worried about me." Scott told her kind of softly.

"What, you know Derek?"

"Yeah, he helped me out last night. I was in the woods with Stiles and a strange creature bit me."

"What?" asked Allison as her face turned white.

"It healed. Completely, in one night. Damnedest thing."

"Damned is a word," said Stiles.

"Scott, no…" said Allison as her eyes filled with tears.

Scott reached for her hand and she flinched away. Scott dropped it to the table instead and just kind of left it there, maybe in case she changed her mind. "Why don't you take some time Allison and I'll talk to you when you're ready."

Allison nodded and picked up her tray, with a stricken look she carried it to the trash and then left the cafeteria.

Stiles mashed around her food for a bit. "I'm sorry Scott," she mumbled.

"It's okay Stiles, I'm sure she'll come around. It just, it doesn't make sense to break up over this. Like if I got AIDS would she act this way?"

"I guess they're worried that you might spread it, which, huh, I guess the AIDS analogy is pretty spot-on. Except you have like anti-AIDS, you'll never get sick again and if you're hurt you'll heal just like the bite did."

"I know, I feel amazing today. Stiles I can breathe, I can breathe deep, I woke up early this morning and went for a run. I ran for miles."

"Wow, that's kind of cool."

"My asthma was like an elephant on my chest, my whole life it was there and I never knew how good it could be. Stiles, it's like a gift."

"I'll, can I tell Derek that. He's really worried about you, he was here this morning. He wanted to enroll so that he could watch out for you."

"Like voluntarily go here?" Scott asked.

Stiles nodded, "Voluntarily attend high school."

"Wow, he's nicer than I thought."

Stiles felt a flush of warmth on Derek's behalf.

Scott had seemed fine at lunch but he got worse as the day went on, maybe it was because Allison was ignoring him. Or maybe it was because Stiles was all up in his face about lacrosse now. "Scotty, I'm just saying you should take one day. One stinking day and maybe practice with Derek to see how things have changed. You need to calibrate, and you can't calibrate on Danny in the goal because you might injure his face."

"He wears a mask Stiles. And he's gay."

"Scott, you have no idea what you are now. You can injure him, you can easily injure him. I know, Derek has shown me things. He gave me this ride in the woods…"

"Stiles!" hissed Scott, "I don't want to know about your rides in the woods."

"It wasn't a metaphor you doofus!" said Stiles with red cheeks.

That served to cool the situation for a minute but then Scott went back to getting ready for lacrosse practice and Stiles went back to arguing with him. They were alone in the locker room and Stiles was kind of an idiot. "You're going to lose control!" she shouted.

"No I won't!" roared Scott losing control. His eyes turned yellow and sideburns started springing out of his face but Stiles just kept arguing. Until she all at once realized what she was doing, then she started backing away from him. She bumped into a locker and started sliding down the line of lockers trying to get away, but there was no away there was just a corner and more lockers.

When they reached the corner Scott boxed her in and loomed over her, his hands sliding closer and burning hot against her skin even through her t-shirt.

"Alright Scott, I get it, I get it, you're good. You're fine. My mistake." Stiles kept her eyes down and tried to turn her head away but that just left her neck exposed and Scott rubbed his face against it, breathing deep.

Suddenly the locker room door opened and instead of a hulking out Derek, which Stiles completely expected to see they heard Allison. "Scott?" she called.

Scott, who had been slowly pressing Stiles into the lockers froze and looked up. His features melted back to normal but Stiles didn't see, here eyes were squeezed shut and he could hear her heart pounding. It was just about the loudest most heartbreaking sound ever, "Stiles, oh my god," he whispered.

"Scott, go," gasped Stiles. "Go talk to Allison, pretend you're in control or she'll tell her family."

"But Stiles, you're shaking."

"I'll be okay, go, go now!" she hissed and Scott went. Without his support she slid down to the ground and put her head between her knees. She just needed a minute to calm down, just one minute. So of course she heard the door open again and the soft click of cleats coming towards her.

"Stilinski, you okay?" asked a voice, the voice of a person that she honestly didn't think knew her name, which heh –he called her Stilinski so maybe he didn't.

Stiles looked up at Jackson and felt very small even after he crouched down near her. "Yeah, I'm fine Jackson, thanks." She murmured.

Jackson sat down next to her, and pulled one of her hands into his wrapping his fingers around her wrist. "You don't look fine and your pulse is rocketing. Was someone else in here with you?"

"Just Scott, we had words."

"Scott didn't do that to your face did he?" asked Jackson as he gently held her chin and moved her head to so he could inspect the scrapes.

"No, that was the ground, Scott's a good guy."

"You're a good guy too Stilinski, don't let anyone push you around."

"Not even you Jackson?" asked Stiles starting to feel more like herself, which was weird because she had never bantered with Jackson like this before.

"Definitely not me," replied Jackson. They went back to just sitting there leaning against the lockers but Jackson held on to her wrist until her pulse went back to normal. When she heard the doors leading outside open and young male voices coming closer she felt well enough to climb to her feet and put a hand out for Jackson.

"Thanks," she said shyly, "I'll get out of here before everyone wonders what the hell. Right?"

"Anytime Stilinski," replied Jackson and he turned to bang open his locker.

Stiles managed to get out the other door before the whole lacrosse team found them together. She went back to her locker and grabbed her things for the night then wandered out to the parking lot.

Derek was sitting in her Jeep, which was weird because she remembered locking it. "Where have you been?" he asked.

"Just getting my stuff, I talked Scott out of going to lacrosse practice today but we wondered if you could maybe practice with him so he knows what to expect."

"Of course," replied Derek. "Not much else going on for me."

"Aw Derek, do you still want to enroll in school?"

"Maybe then I can be there when Scott attacks you in the locker room," observed Derek.

Stiles was trying to get her key in the ignition while he said that and she pretty much just dropped the whole key ring. "How? Did you hear it?" she asked. Derek glared at her.

"Well you could have burst in there and helped out, but I'm glad you didn't because then it would have escalated. And whoa, he just heard Allison's voice and then he was fine. She's totally his anchor."

"You certainly aren't. Do you have any sense of self-preservation?"

"Not really," replied Stiles honestly as she finally got the key in the ignition and started up the Jeep. "Where to? Visit Uncle Peter?"

Scott and Derek got together later that night to 'practice lacrosse', "I heard every word from the locker room Scott," said Derek in a calm conversational tone, "and if you ever ever lose control around Stiles like that again, I will rip you in half. Which incidentally, is one of the few ways you can be killed."

Then he whipped a lacrosse ball at him so hard that he flew back into a tree, "and also, Stiles was right you could have killed your goalie."

While they were playing Stiles was greeting her most regular trespasser. "Seriously Ms. Argent, this is private property and you're not welcome here."

"Oh please, Ms. Argent, you make me sound so old. I'm practically a peer, give or take ten or fifteen years. Allison considers me a peer you know, a shoulder to cry on, someone to confide in. She told me, of course she told me. She was afraid to tell her parents because you know, her mother can be a bit of a fanatic, but me. Friendly Aunt Kate, cool Aunt Kate, she came straight to me after school today."

"And?" asked Stiles, as her mind rushed ahead and pictured a hundred different ands –each more horrible than the last.

"And I'm going to put him down now of course. Derek too."

"You're not going to let Allison find out what an awesome lover a werewolf can be? They're just the right degree of animal aren't they?" asked Stiles with a vicious look. When Derek kisses me it feels like he wants to devour me. It's giving me a fetish for the color red."

Kate sneered at her, "Oh, I'm counting on that." She pulled out a gun and led Stiles back out the door.

Kate let her keep the red hoodie which was decent of her since the cell was fucking freezing. Once Stiles was in the back of the darkly tinted black SUV they pulled a bag over her head so apparently they figured she didn't know where she was, except she was in a cell and it sounded like the woods were nearby and it smelled like fire so she was 99% sure she was at the old Hale house.

"So what exactly is the plan here?" she asked from her cell. "I am a human girl you know, and also the sheriff's beloved only daughter."

"Well, let's hope he kept good dental records on you because I expect that's all they will have to go on. But for now my dear, you are bait. We'll see which of your little werewolf friends shows up first, and then once we have two we'll see if we can get them to fight over you and then we'll see if we can get them to tear you to pieces and then when there's just one left and your blood is running down their arms, maybe then I'll let it go so it can think about what it's done. And then I'll probably kill it too anyway."

"My father is going to make sure you get a short miserable day in court before you are locked up forever you mass-murdering psycho bitch!" screamed Stiles.

"I think I won that threat down," mused Kate and she turned off the light as she left.

The sheriff called Scott that night when Stiles wasn't home and wasn't answering her phone. Then he called Derek. Then he put out an APB on her, she was a minor it was allowed.

Derek was with his uncle when he got the phone call and he started to panic right away. But Peter calmed him down and spoke to him about plans and search patterns.

"Does she have friends besides you and Scott?" he asked as he pulled on the jeans and Henley that Derek had smuggled in so they could sneak out again.

"Not really, Allison Argent maybe."

"Argent? Hunters?" asked Peter going very still.

"Yeah, Scott, her friend who was bit last night, is dating Kate Argent's niece."

"Gerard's granddaughter?" asked Peter and Derek nodded unhappily.

"Well, I guess we have a number one suspect then," said Peter, "Kate probably has her as bait for you and Scott."

"So she's probably somewhere that she can trap us," said Derek slowly.

"How much of the house is left?" asked Peter.

"Enough for that," replied Derek and they dropped out of the window together; two shadows slipping into the woods.

Derek got close to his old house, close enough to smell that people had been there. Peter smelled them too and his eyes flashed startling Derek. Derek was going to ask his uncle about it but Stiles screamed at just that moment. "You'd better go to her Derek, make sure she's okay. I'll wait here until I see Kate Argent, she's the one we want to destroy."

"But if I go to Stiles, that's what Kate wants isn't it?" asked Derek.

Stiles screamed again, "does it really matter?" asked Peter but Derek was already gone.

He burst into the cell in his wolfman form and saw Stiles chained to the far wall, as soon as he took a step towards her the door behind him clanged shut. But that was for worrying about after Stiles was safe. He snapped the chains that were holding her and pulled her to his chest. She shuddered and wrapped herself around him.

"Is she here?" he managed to ask around all the teeth in his mouth. Stiles shook her head and tried to burrow closer. She pointed to the corner of the cell and Derek saw a tv camera pointing at them. He set Stiles down and ripped it from the wall, squeezing it to broken plastic pieces in his hand.

"She had stuff set up remotely," Stiles gasped. "There was a magnetic catch for the door, when she saw you on the camera she released it to lock you in."

Derek rushed back to her and picked her up, wrapping her legs around his waist and holding her close to his chest. "What about you?" he whispered, "I heard you scream."

Stiles pointed to a car battery that was set up near the chains and Derek growled before tugging on an arm so he could look at her wrist. It was red and blistered but Stiles was alive, Kate could have killed her. Electrical shock was a popular torture for werewolves because the shock of it kept them from transforming fully, the pain of it kept them from thinking clearly, but a human girl could have been killed.

Quickly he drew off all the aches and pains that he could and then he looked around for something to wrap her wrists with. He carefully set her down in the corner and inspected both wrists, the left one was burned and the right one was just scraped. Derek untucked his shirt and ripped off the bottom few inches so he could gently bandage Stiles. The cell was filthy and he didn't want her wounds to get infected.

When Stiles seemed okay enough to smile at him he decided it was time to get out. He rattled the bars but couldn't find any weak spots. He tried kicking at the lock too but that didn't work either, he kept trying though until he was sweating and panting and the silence was loud and buzzing after all of the clanging.

When he calmed down enough to look around carefully he saw the flashing red light of a camera in the gloom across from the barred door. He thought about calling his uncle but the had no service. With a sigh he went back to where he had left Stiles and scooped her onto his lap. Stiles was crying silently and he felt a wave of hopelessness as he pulled her closer. "It's alright," he whispered, "it took me about five minutes to figure out where you were, your dad probably figured it out in two. And he's too smart to come charging in and get stuck like I did."

Stiles shrugged and tried to believe Derek but she was doubtful. The cell was quiet and dusty and the smell of the fire was overpowering. Stiles wondered if Derek could smell the burned flesh of his relatives and the thought made her cry harder, which upset Derek more. He could smell burned flesh but it was Stiles's. When Stiles finally ran out of tears she noticed how cold she was. Derek noticed her shivers and pulled off his second shirt, wrapping it around her back trying to keep her as warm as he could. It was really dark now and the flashing of the camera light was all she could make out in the gloom.

"She said," whispered Stiles into Derek's shoulder, "she said that she was going to lure both you and Scott here and have you fight over me. She can't do that can she? Make you fight? You have so much control Derek, I don't think she can."

Derek didn't answer.

It was morning before Scott burst in to the basement, Stiles was so happy to see him. "Scott," she croaked, "do you have anything to drink?"

"Why, did Derek decide you couldn't have anything to drink?" snapped Scott opening the cell door. Stiles tried to stumble over to the door and Derek leaped for it too.

"Scott," shrieked Stiles, "don't let it clo-" but the door slammed shut before she could get the words out. Scott whirled around and pushed but it was locked again.

"Oh my god," moaned Stiles.

"You idiot," snarled Derek and Scott's eyes flashed yellow in response.

"Boys! Stop!" yelled Stiles and she threw herself in between them. "Derek, what's going on?"

Derek growled at her.

Stiles put her hand on him and tried to be as calm as she could, "Derek, is there werewolf kryptonite? Dude, tell me, what could be causing this?"

Derek shook his head and took a tiny step back, "Kryptonite? Yeah, yes, there's wolfsbane. It's poison to us and hunters use it, they use different strains different ways. I think there's one that makes us angry."

"Okay, so it's like a plant right? And this just started right, so it must be on Scott somewhere." She turned to Scott who was shaking with the effort of resisting the emotions swirling around him. "Derek, can you please stand over there?" asked Stiles in her softest voice.

Derek looked at the corner and then looked at Stiles. "I'm not sure, but I'll try, I'll try to stay as far as I can." He slowly dragged his feet backwards and then stopped after just a few steps.

Stiles settled for what he could give her and turned back to Scott. "Let's start from the top," she announced and ran her fingers through his hair, but there was nothing but hair. Then she pulled off his shirt and shook it out well before tossing it as far as she could. He squeaked and pulled off his own belt passing it to Stiles to inspect. He kicked off his sneakers and she looked them over before tossing them over to where his shirt and belt were. He pulled off his jeans next and since Stiles didn't really want to inspect Scott's underwear she took her time going over his jeans. The fake little pocket where people kept pocket watches or quarters or whatever one hundred years ago was sewn shut but she could feel seeds and sticks through it.

"Does anyone have a knife? I think I found something." No one had a knife but Derek let one finger transform so that it had a long wicked claw at the end and Stiles carefully held it and ripped open the pocket. She shook the stuff into her hand and then looked around the cell. If there was a window she could have gotten a boost and then thrown it outside where the wind might blow it away. She could try sticking her hand out the bars but she didn't think she could get it far enough away that way.

The floor was poured concrete so she couldn't dig a hole. Stiles stood there with her fist tightly closed and the two werewolves staring at each other, Derek's eyes flashing blue right behind her and Scott's flashing yellow. ' I wonder who has red eyes' she asked herself.

"Could we burn it?" she asked out loud.

"The smoke would be bad, we might kill each other before it dissipates. And I don't have a lighter, do you?" asked Derek.

Stiles and Scott both shook their heads no. "Did I get all of it?" Stiles asked Derek and he wandered over to the pile of Scott's clothes.

He poked through the pile and nodded, "I think you did but your hand is starting to sweat and that's making it, making it worse again." Derek pressed himself away from Stiles and Scott, he was starting to sweat too.

"Okay, I've got an idea." Stiles assured them.

"Stiles, your heart is pounding, you're thinking of something stupid," Scott said in a whine but he was backing away too. Stiles didn't say anything to deny it but she deliberately turned her back on the camera and hunched over when she shoved her handful of nasty dried wolfsbane in her mouth then swallowed it down, which was horrible because she had been locked in that godforsaken cell all night and her mouth was as dry as a desert. It was like eating dust, but she choked it down and licked her lips to be sure she got it all.

When she finally straightened out again Derek and Scott were all up in her face. "How could you do that?" they demanded. "I just told you it was poisonous."

"Poison to wolves, not a wolf," she muttered but she was ready to hurl and it felt like the dust was coating her teeth so she didn't want to breathe it all over them. Really she just wanted to hunker on the floor in a ball and dream about beverages.

"It could be poison to you too, we don't really know what it was," Derek complained.

"Listen, Kate told me all of her evil schemes when she locked me in here. Her plan was to have you guys fight to the death, if that's what that shit was going to do I'm okay with a stomach ache. It's not affecting you anymore is it?"

"No, it isn't," said Scott and Derek nodded. "But you look bad Stiles, and what's with your wrist?" asked Scott when he noticed the bandages for the first time.

"Kate electrocuted her and burnt her wrist," growled Derek as he settled himself in the corner facing the door and pulled Stiles down onto his lap. Scott put his clothes back on and then settled down close beside Derek. Stiles thought it was strangely close for Scott since he didn't know Derek that well but these were strange times.

Scott's phone had no signal either, whether that was just because they were in the basement of a house in the woods or maybe there was some jammer nearby but it didn't matter. When that hope was gone Stiles finally thought to ask Scott about her father and how he had come to find them. Scott shared the bad news that apparently Kate had given Stiles' credit card to somebody and they were charging up a storm en route to Sacramento. Sheriff Stilinski had told Scott that much before he kicked him out of the house and sent him home, but Scott didn't go home. He went to Allison's house, but he didn't go in Allison's house of course. He just lurked outside until he heard them mention prisoners at the Hale house and then he had charged over here and barged through the door like a mouse entering a mouse trap.

"I wonder how that stuff got in my pocket." Scott asked just to have something to talk about.

"Kate's broken into my house like three times, she probably broke into your house and messed with your clothes. What did you do with Allison after school?"

"Not much, we left the school and talked in the parking lot for a while. She told me she needed time and I told her that was fine, I wasn't planning on going anywhere." Scott banged his head against the wall. "I guess she ran off to tell her bitch of an aunt about everything."

Nobody commented on that observation. The silence grew and grew as they realized how powerfully the wolfsbane was affecting Stiles who became stiller and stiller. Derek was grateful, extremely grateful, that he was the one holding her because he could feel her heart beating and her lungs expanding, otherwise he might think she was dying. Scott was leaned all up against Derek's side and was holding Stiles' hand.

"What do you think Kate will do since we didn't kill each other?" asked Scott after an hour or so.

"I don't know, maybe she'll just leave us here."

"Won't she have to come back for her cameras and shit?"

"Maybe, I don't know what her rush is though."

"Should we pretend to fight? You could fake killing me and then maybe she'll come sooner and she'll go to get my body and I'll be like not-dead and attack her."

Derek just looked at Scott and Scott tried to think of a better plan. Finally he asked if there was anyone else out there that knew about werewolves and Argents.

"There are two people left, my uncle and the local vet, Dr. Deaton."

"Dr. Deaton? He's my boss man, is he a werewolf?"

"No, he isn't but he knows about us, he was like an advisor for my mother when she was alpha."

"That's cool, so I can like talk to him about things? Please tell me I can talk to him about things, he's like my second favorite father-figure after the sheriff."

"You can talk to him about things," Derek assured him.

"So, your uncle, isn't he in a coma in the hospital."

"Yes and no, he woke up a few days ago but he healed too quickly and too well so he's faking things a little to keep people from getting suspicious."

"Makes sense," nodded Scott. "Will he miss you if you don't show up to visit?"

"Um, actually he knows where I am. He came with me last night." Admitted Derek softly.

"What?" yelled Scott, "he knows you're in here and he left you all night?"

Stiles woke up and glanced from one to the other of them with huge dark eyes, trying to figure out what was going on. Derek rubbed her back and tried to get her to put her head down again, her eyes were so dilated that they looked like solid black and it creeped him out. "Yeah, Peter knows I'm in here, he knew Stiles would be here as a trap and he hoped that if I fell for the trap that eventually Kate would show up and then he could kill her."

"Killing Kate Argent is more important than you and Stiles being locked up here tortured all night?"

"Werewolves heal Scott and Kate killed our whole family."

"Stiles doesn't heal, what did he say about the little human girl that's all mixed up with this?"

"I don't know, I think he likes her but he hasn't really healed all the way yet. He's still a little obsessed with getting back at the Argents."

"So, you're saying that he's insane?"

Derek shrugged and looked away with a face that would have fit right in on the dog shaming site. "He's insane, I think he must be the alpha that bit you."

"What, and you just, you just went along with it when he told you to walk into a trap?"

"No, they were torturing Stiles, she was screaming. I didn't listen to anything, I just ran."

"Well, that's legitimate. I would have probably done the same." Scott straightened out his legs and Derek thought he might move away a little bit but he didn't. When he was done stretching he leaned right back in to Derek's shoulder. "Hey," he said after a while, "there's another person who knows what we are and where we are, Allison."

"You think she'll rescue us?" asked Derek as politely as he could.

"I don't know, but it isn't right that Stiles is here."

"It isn't right that you're here either Scott, you were just attacked two nights ago, you haven't done anything."

"Thanks Derek," said Scott, oddly touched.

It was true and Derek couldn't even say anything about his appalling taste in Argent women, not when he had done the same thing.

"So, how much time do you think we have? Stiles seems pretty messed up now, and she probably really needs water. It's going to be twenty-four hours for her soon and she was tortured and then poisoned herself, that can't be good."

Derek pulled Stiles in closer to him again, Scott was right she was starting to get worse. He turned to Scott to suggest the two of them working on one bar together, maybe if they both attacked the same bar they could rip it out and the gap would be big enough for Stiles to get through, Mr. Wolf too probably and Scott was kind of thin. But just then they heard someone approach.

Scott was instantly in a half crouch in front of Derek and Stiles, his hair bristling and a low growl rumbling through him. Derek was the same but with Stiles clutched to his chest. Peter smiled at them both as he walked up to the cell door. "Look at you, it's like a little starter pack."


	7. Chapter 7

"Open the door," demanded Derek, "we need to get Stiles to a doctor."

"No, not yet Derek. Don't you remember the plan, we're waiting for Kate Argent to show up."

"That was your plan from before we learned that Stiles was hurt, things are different now."

"Look, I brought you some things," soothed Peter swinging a plastic bag. "There's some water, nice fresh water and a few granola bars –the nice high protein ones. And a couple of Slim Jims for my favorite pack members." Peter swung the bag through the bars and Scott caught it automatically.

"I don't think a bottle of water and a granola bar are going to be enough for Stiles, we can stay here but you need to take her to a doctor," begged Scott.

"Mind your mouth pup," admonished Peter as his eyes flashed red and Scott flinched, "I'll tell you what, if she gets really close to dying you can call me and I'll come give her the bite. I meant to give it to her the other night. I don't think I meant to give it to you at all, but something must have confused me." Peter stared off into the middle distance as if he was reliving the night of the full moon, "but I can fix that at any time right? So if she gets worse just call me."

"No," growled Derek. "It's too risky, it might not take on her and then she would die anyway. Please you need to take her to a doctor."

"If it doesn't take, if she'll never be a wolf, then what good is she to us?" asked Peter and Derek and Scott both started growling at him, their eyes flashing blue and gold. "Stop," ordered Peter and the growling faltered for a moment but then came back louder than before.

"Oh boys, you really aren't persuading me to open this door at all." Peter stepped back from the door, looked over at the little camera that was filming the bars just a few feet to the left of him and then turned to leave.

With a snarl Scott threw himself at the bars and reached with his long arms through them, trying to grab Peter, but Peter was already gone. Scott thrashed and banged at the bars for a long time until Derek called him back.

"Scott," said Derek softly and Scott came to sit next to him. Together they got Stiles to drink a bit of a water bottle.

"I wish he had brought juice or something so we could get some sugar in her," complained Scott when he realized Stiles was too out of it to eat a granola bar or a Slim Jim.

"Yeah, something like yogurt would be good too," agreed Derek. "Maybe the water will be enough to wake her up for the other stuff."

Scott nodded and decided that they would try to force more water on her in a few minutes. He pulled out one of the Slim Jims and tore open the end, "she hates meat sticks so we can eat these."

Derek almost smiled and ripped open the other one. There was a lot of water in the bag so they shared another bottle. They ended up back in the same positions they were in before Peter had arrived but they somehow felt a little more hopeful, just because they had a little food and water with them now.

"Sorry my uncle is a deranged jack-ass who attacked you in the woods and made you a werewolf," Derek muttered after a long quiet period.

"Were you working that out in your head just now?" asked Scott.

Derek growled but it wasn't very angry. Scott smiled at him, "don't worry about it. We can't be responsible for our families right? My dad's a douche and that isn't my fault.

Besides if all this drama goes away I think I might enjoy it. I had pretty bad asthma before and it was like, I don't know, I had it all my life so I was used to it, but it was a shitty thing to be used to. Since the bite I feel so much more alive and awesome. And almost attacking Stiles in the locker room sucked too, but you said I can learn how to deal with that right?"

Derek nodded, "Stiles said you got control really quickly when Allison called you. That's a good sign. There's another thing too, normally your alpha has some degree of control over the wolves they turn. When Peter told you to stop you should have frozen immediately, it says something about you that you didn't."

"What does it say?" asked Scott curious and strangely flattered.

"I don't know, I guess because you didn't ask for the bite and maybe because Peter was so insane you don't recognize him as your alpha at all," said Derek.

"You didn't obey either," said Scott.

"No," said Derek, "I don't really know how Peter became an alpha. My mother, his older sister, was our alpha before the fire. Normally you have to kill another alpha to become an alpha, I don't know if, maybe my mother was suffering and dying and he killed her? That happens sometimes and it's a mercy." Derek's voice had become very soft and unsure, as Scott realized what he was talking about Scott leaned in closer and closer to Derek, wrapping his hands around Stiles' wrist again. Scott wanted to say something but he couldn't think of what.

They got Stiles to drink a little more water later and she ate some granola bar too but her eyes were still glassy. Her wrist looked a little worse but she didn't seem to have a fever yet so they were cautiously pleased about that. Derek let Scott hold Stiles while he paced around for a bit, it was really boring in the cell and there wasn't anything to think about except if Stiles was going to be okay, if they were ever going to get out, and somehow the worst thoughts of all, how Peter had become an alpha and what that meant for all of them.

It was late afternoon before they heard a car door slam. Scott placed Stiles carefully in the corner with their extra shirts wrapped around her and went to join Derek near the door. Derek wasn't in his werewolf form yet and Scott was wondering how long it would take him before he could resist the shift that easily. Scott felt like the slightest bit of adrenaline sent all the changes flowing through him. But then he smelled Allison and all thoughts of shifting disappeared, replaced by happiness and relief, at least until he saw her and that hard unhappy look on her face.

"I brought you some things," she muttered reaching through the bars and setting down a plastic bag. They could hear the clink of glass bottles but the rest was wrapped up in paper.

"Allison," croaked Scott, and he wanted to go closer to the door, closer to her, but he knew that if he did she would just back away. "Allison, can't you let us out? Stiles is really sick, she was electrocuted and her wrist is all burned, she needs to see a doctor before it gets infected."

"I'm sorry," said Allison swallowing hard.

"Allison, I know you aren't happy with werewolves but Stiles is still just a human, she's hurt and she needs a doctor." Scott felt the outrage gathering in his chest but fought to keep his voice soft and reasonable.

"It isn't that simple Scott, she has chosen her side."

"And you have chosen yours? Or are you just following your family?"

"I brought you sandwiches, I came down here. That isn't nothing."

Scott didn't reply, it wasn't nothing but it was so much less than Stiles needed. He turned to walk back to Stiles and scooped her up off the floor, carrying her closer to where Allison could see her. "Remind me," he said pushing up a sleeve and unwinding the bandage Derek had made from his t-shirt. "Blisters are second-degree right? We should be keeping this sterile right?"

Allison looked away from the arm that Scott was angrily waving at her. Derek walked over to the both of them and rewrapped Stiles wrist before pulling her out of Scott's arms. Allison was relieved for a moment that Stiles wasn't awake to argue with her and then she realized how deeply unconscious the other girl must be. She shouldn't be that sick from just a burn, although it did look painful.

"Does she have a fever?" asked Allison.

"No, we've been keeping her off the floor and as warm as we can."

"Oh, I was just wondering why she's, um, unconscious," admitted Allison looking away again.

"Your aunt put some wolfsbane in here, have they told you about wolfsbane?" asked Derek in a soft voice.

Allison nodded.

"It was some strain that made Scott and I agitated, what did Stiles call it?" he asked Scott.

"Kryptonite," replied Scott. "She'll probably want to write a paper on it later."

"Kate told Stiles that Scott and I would kill each other in this cell and then the survivor would be so out of their mind that they would kill her too. And then Kate was going to just open the door so we could go out and try to live with that knowledge."

"Why didn't you?" asked Allison.

"Stiles ate it," Scott told her, "she's insane, like freaky genius insane, because it worked, the wolfsbane isn't affecting either of us anymore, but she's been like this ever since she swallowed it."

"Sometimes her eyes are open," remarked Derek, "it's kind of worse then."

"It is," agreed Scott, "her eyes look really wrong, like all black and shiny."

"I think she must be hallucinating or dreaming," said Derek adjusting Stiles in his arms again.

"It was heroic though, and mad genius, to swallow the wolfsbane like that. We would have fought otherwise, like Kate wanted. I mean, Derek did a pretty good job resisting it but I wasn't as strong."

"I probably could have restrained you, if I got you in a good hold."

"Maybe but it wouldn't have been for all the hours that we've been in here, eventually you would have slipped and I could have hurt Stiles then."

"She's hurt anyway," said Derek.

"Yeah but not bleeding out from a gash to her stomach slowly and painfully while locked in a prison cell at the edge of the woods hurt." Derek looked away and shrugged. He made his way back to the corner so he could sit down and spread Stiles out comfortably on his lap.

Scott took a small step closer to Allison, "if she was bleeding out like that would you open the door?"

Allison nodded and Scott chose to believe her. "Is there anything you can do to tip off the sheriff maybe? The last I heard he thought that somebody was using Stiles' credit card near Sacramento. Could you call in a tip so that they start looking around town too? Maybe say that you saw lights out here?"

Allison looked frightened and shook her head, "no police. I don't know who's fingerprints are down here. I can't risk my parents getting locked up."

"We haven't seen your parents," Scott promised but Allison still looked alarmed at the thought.

"Okay, not the police. Could you tell someone else though? Could you tell my boss that I won't be in to work this afternoon?"

"Your boss?" asked Allison.

"Yeah, the vet, Dr. Deaton. He's really important to me, I've been working for him since my dad moved away. Can you tell him that I won't be in to work?"

"I guess I can. What will that do for you though Scott? Will he look for you? Will he know where to look?"

"I don't know Allison, I guess I hope he'll look for me. Maybe it will just keep my job in case I get out of here alive."

"Does he know about all this?" asked Allison gesturing to the basement and the bars around them.

"Yes, he knew about the Hale pack before, I don't think he knows that I've been bitten yet, but I'm pretty sure he'll be okay with it."

"He will Scott, he's a good man," called Derek from his corner. Scott turned to give him a grateful smile.

"You'll be okay to work with animals?" asked Allison.

"I think so, I mean I haven't been around cats yet but I don't think I'll freak out and try to eat them. If anything maybe I'll be better, I can see and hear things better so if they're scared I'll know it sooner, if they're in pain maybe I can find out where faster. And if they struggle I can hold them tighter, I won't have to be afraid of them hurting me.

Of course if they vomit it will smell a whole lot worse, but I guess those are the breaks.

And my mom won't have to spend her money on my asthma medicine, she won't have to miss work to take me to the doctor's. She won't have to spend another sleepless night sitting next to an oxygen tent while I try to get over another asthma attack.

I didn't choose to be bitten, I didn't ask for it, I was attacked by an unknown alpha when I was just goofing off in the woods with Stiles. But if there is some good that I can do with this then I'm going to do it. Even if it's as selfish as making life easier for the people most important to me, like my mom or my boss, then I'm going to do that."

"No, those are good things Scott. You're very noble and I understand about you not asking for this. I'll see what I can do about telling Dr. Deaton."

"Thanks Allison," said Scott with a blush. "I don't feel very noble, not when Stiles is like that after trying to save me."

"Yes, well, she always does seem to have trouble with impulse control. Do you think Dr. Deaton will know what to do for Stiles. You said he knew about werewolves…"

"He might," said Scott with some excitement.

"Okay, I'll give him a call. I'll tell him what I can."

"Thanks Allison, I know it's hard to go against your family," said Scott.

"Well, I guess it's not as hard when you don't really believe in what they're doing," murmured Allison as she turned to leave.

Derek gave Scott a proud sort of look as they opened the bag of sandwiches. "You were pretty convincing there Scott, have you considered a career in law?"

"No, but it's probably because of all those Law and Order shows Stiles makes me watch."

"You know you love them," whispered Stiles.

"Stiles," said Scott, climbing over Derek and trying to see her face where it was buried against his neck, "are you alive man?"

"A little bit," she whispered with a tiny smile. "What did she bring?"

Stiles drank a whole bottle of apple juice and some bread from Derek's sandwich before she went back to sleep. "I don't think I'm dying," she promised them, "I'm just really tired."

The boys felt better after that but it was still boring being locked in a cell all day. Scott pestered Derek into talking, a lot. He told Scott about the history of his family, the story of how his parents met, how they came to live in Beacon Hills, where their money came from, how his mother was famous among other packs because she could transform fully into a wolf.

As a child Derek had assumed that all alphas could transform into wolves and he almost caused a border war once when he asked a visiting alpha to transform for him. He wasn't sure how he transformed into the pure wolf that first time after the fire, he just remembered feeling so overwhelmed by everything, by the loss and the guilt and the horror that he wanted it all to go away. He wished that he was dead too, he wished that he didn't have to feel all these emotions. And then somehow he was a wolf. The wolf felt the loss too but it wasn't as bad, it was muted a little and as time went by the human feelings became more and more muted until he almost forgot he was something besides a wolf.

"You were a wolf for years, how did you change back finally?" asked Scott.

"I had to," said Derek. "This idiot got caught in a mudslide, she was stuck in all these branches and roots by the edge of the creek and the creek water was rising. I was afraid she was going to drown, I tried pulling on her jacket with my teeth but I couldn't get her out, and then I needed to carry her to her car so she could get out of the rain and get warm."

"So you were like naked and you carried her to the Jeep? Did you get in to keep her warm?"

"As the wolf Scott, I got in and closed the door and then I went back to my wolf shape. Fur is warm, and I fit better on the seat."

"And when she woke up she didn't think anything was weird?"

"No, that's something you should learn. People will make their own excuses, and the explanations that they come up with are usually the ones they will like the best."

"That is a very valuable lesson," said Dr. Deaton as he approached the cell. "I remember when your mother was trying to teach Laura. Laura enjoyed making up excuses so much herself that she never wanted to leave well enough alone. I'm glad you understand it so well Derek. I suppose it's something you learned by being mute for so long."

Derek shrugged uncomfortably, he wasn't used to being praised and he didn't know Dr. Deaton that well and Stiles was asleep again. He wasn't transforming but his gums itched with the urge.

Scott's feelings weren't so ambiguous, he was practically pushing his head through the bars for Deaton to pet. Dr. Deaton was beaming at Scott too, which was odd.

"Did Allison call you sir?" asked Scott.

"Yes, she did. It was an odd conversation, she told me that you and Stiles were tied up at the Hale house with Mr. Wolf. When I asked if she meant literally tied up she didn't answer. I figured that meant I should come see for myself."

"It's been a long day. Kate Argent kidnapped Stiles and used her as bait for Derek to come, and then I eavesdropped outside the Argent house and came but they trapped me too."

"What's wrong with Stiles?" asked Dr. Deaton as he seemed to notice that she wasn't interrupting.

"Kate Argent knew that I would try to save them and get caught myself so she hid wolfsbane in my pocket, it made Derek and I really aggressive towards each other so Stiles ate it."

"She ate it?" asked Dr. Deaton.

Scott shrugged, "it worked, she was worse before but she told us she's just tired now. Can you open the door Dr. Deaton? Then we can see if she needs a doctor."

Dr. Deaton glanced over to the door of the cell, "I don't think one man alone can open that door."

"Peter Hale was here first, he wouldn't let us out though, not until Kate show us up so he can kill her. You haven't heard if that's, um, happened yet?"

"No, I haven't heard. It could be a good alibi for you three though, to be locked in here. That way the rest of the Argent clan can't blame you for anything."

"But won't they try to kill Peter?" asked Derek, "what will happen to us if they kill our alpha?"

"Is Peter Hale really your alpha?" asked Dr. Deaton back.

"Not in my heart," replied Derek immediately, "he'll never replace my mother. And I don't know how he got the alpha power from her."

"I prefer not to think about how that happened myself. Although, she could have sensed that Peter, with his knack for self preservation, would survive and she could have gifted him with it."

"But if she had kept the spark, maybe she could have survived," said Derek softly and he suddenly sounded very young.

"I don't think so Derek, I think Talia knew the shock of losing her children and her mate was going to destroy her even if her body survived."

Derek had no reply to that but hearing Deaton say it comforted him. Eventually though he asked, "If the Argents kill Peter for killing Kate what will happen to Scott and I?"

"What do you want to happen Derek?"

Derek looked away unsure of how to answer that question.

"Do you want to go to college? Do you want to get a job? Do you want to stay here or travel around, maybe find another pack? Everything, anything is open to you Derek."

Derek replied by tightening his arms around Stiles who was curled up in his lap asleep with her head on his shoulder. "I want to stay and make sure that Stiles and Scott are safe."

Dr. Deaton smiled approvingly, "that's a good choice too."

"But won't we need an alpha?" asked Derek.

"Not necessarily, you remember the sign for your pack, the triskelion?" Derek nodded and Deaton continued, "I'm sure most packs assumed that it meant alpha, beta and omega but it actually stood for so much more than that. Triads, triumvirates, tridiums, triunes; it turns out that three really is the magic number. The three of you can represent the wolf, the man and the spark –you can be a pack with just yourselves."

"What's a spark?" asked Scott.

"Stiles is like a catalyst, she has something inside her, a strength of will, that makes things happen. Isn't she the reason Derek was able to leave his wolf form? Didn't she bring Derek and Peter together, giving Peter the support he needed to wake up from his coma? Wasn't she the one that Peter was after when he was in his alpha form and attacking you in the woods?"

Scott nodded as he thought of more examples from their shared childhood. In the silence Derek realized that Stiles was awake and listening, she had been soft and pliant in his arms before but now her back was stiff with tension. He started sweeping his palms down her back in a way he hoped was soothing, he was pretty sure it was soothing because he liked it when Stiles did it to Mr. Wolf.

"I can mentor Stiles, teach her how to be your emissary. And of course I can be your emissary in the meantime, but I don't think you'll need me."

"Will our pack be safe?" asked Derek.

"Without an alpha you won't be able to add to your pack, well you won't be able to add werewolves. That part may be hard, the bite can be a gift and there are people in Beacon Hills who can be helped by the bite. But without an alpha you don't have that to give.

Other packs might hear about you and try to take your territory or force you to join their packs. But if you're quiet and mind your own business maybe they won't hear about you for a long long time."

"Stiles isn't going to Beacon Hills Community College, my grades are so shitty that I might be but she's worked hard. What will happen when she wants to go away?"

Dr. Deaton shrugged, "It's a big world; maybe she'll go alone, maybe Derek will go with her, maybe you'll go too and find a school near hers. As a triad I think you'll find that decisions almost decide themselves. Especially a triad as tightly bonded as yours."

"What do you mean?" asked Scott. "Stiles and I are very close but I didn't really meet Derek until like two days ago?"

"And yet, you haven't killed each other."

"Because Stiles ate the wolfsbane," insisted Scott.

"Exactly," said Dr. Deaton which only confused the three of them more. "I'll be back in the morning, sooner if I hear anything."

"But Dr. Deaton, what about my mom and Stiles' dad? Can't you tell them something?"

"Not yet Scott, I know they're worried but I don't think it's time for you three to leave the cell yet," and with that he turned and walked away.


	8. Chapter 8

Scott whined, it was a long high noise that would have made any collie proud. Stiles decided to distract him by trying to stand up on her own. She had to lean against the wall for a while but eventually her legs felt steadier and she could stretch, which felt wonderful.

"So, did you have a good nap?" Scott asked after she had polished off the food Allison had brought.

"Yes, it was kind of trippy. I'm not sure my dare pledge is still in effect, but I don't regret anything. And now that I'm fed and watered I would kill for a bathroom so let's get out of here."

"We tried Stiles, we couldn't budge anything," insisted Derek but Scott waited to see what she was plotting.

"This cell was made to be almost impenetrable by a werewolf, but if you're calm enough to think about it then you can figure out how to get out," Stiles assured them. She walked over to the last bar before the stone wall started, it was just half an inch away from the wall so it wasn't really necessary, and maybe that's why it wasn't fixed in place like the others.

Stiles lifted the bar up until it slipped out of the hole in the floor and then pulled it back down towards herself so it was loose. She carried the bar over to the cell door and wedged it between the door and the lock so she could lever it open. Scott put his hands next to hers on the bar and Derek wrapped his hands around the end, the three of them pulled together and the door popped open.

They all flipped off the camera as they left.

"Okay," sighed Stiles looking a lot more relieved. "So, I understand what Deaton was saying about letting Peter and Kate kill each other and keeping our hands clean but… But there's always collateral damage, what would that do to Allison? Or her dad? What will it do to Derek? It's too risky in my opinion, and also, it's never okay to take justice in your own hands like that. We need to capture Kate and present the evidence so she gets locked up."

"What about Peter? If he's loose won't he be my alpha? I don't want him to control me," said Scott.

"Then he won't control you Scott. You learned from the best, moi, and you can be a stubborn son of a bitch when you want it." Stiles assured him.

"This goes against everything Dr. Deaton said and he's been an emissary for a long time," said Derek quietly like he felt it needed to be said but didn't want it to be true.

"Because," said Stiles with a deep breath, "what he said about the triad was true, the three of us united are very powerful. If the three of us agree on what we want then the way just kind of opens up in front of us."

"Okay then," said Scott, "do we agree to stop this and try to get Kate arrested for her crimes against the Hale pack? I vote for jail."

"I do too," said Stiles, "Derek?"

Derek nodded and when he realized they were waiting for him to say the stupid words he cleared his throat, "I would like to see Kate Argent arrested for her crimes."

Scott and Stiles gave him bright smiles. "Okay," continued Stiles, "I'm going to call my dad, I'll tell him Kate kidnapped us and that she set the fire. Derek, what should we do about Peter? Can we reason with him that we want to do this legally so the pack won't face retribution from other hunters? Do we need to contain him?"

Derek looked very uncomfortable, "I guess we should try both. Maybe contain him and then try to reason with him."

"Sounds smart," said Scott. "Where can we contain him?"

"Not the cell, my dad will be crawling all over it."

"I have a place, but I'll need Scott to help me," said Derek.

Stiles wanted to ask if it was safe but she could tell from Derek's face that it wasn't. Derek was being incredibly selfless she realized, he had more to lose than her or Scott. He could let Peter tear Kate to shreds, maybe even help her for all the family and all the years they had both lost, and then they could just skip town, go anywhere they wanted. But Derek had told Deaton that he wanted to stay here to take care of her and Scott. All she could do was be relieved that he had asked for Scott to be there too when he tried to contain Peter, Scott would do everything he could to keep Derek safe, Stiles believed that.

Stiles really wanted to go home and get a shower but she stayed where she was and called the police. Derek and Scott kept her company until they heard the police car approaching and then they melted into the woods.

Her dad was chasing a credit card lead far away, 'thanks Kate for making this so easy,' thought Stiles, but she was able to talk to him on the phone and he allowed her to go home and shower, agreeing to wait on statements until he was back in town. A small crew came out to the Hale house while Stiles and the deputy were still there to collect evidence and guard the premises until the sheriff returned.

The deputy dropped Stiles off at home. "Don't go anywhere until your dad gets home," he told Stiles for the fifteenth time.

Stiles gave him a kiss on the cheek and promised she wouldn't. And she didn't, she took a long shower, put on her softest sweat pants and sacked out on the couch to wait for her dad. For a moment she thought of Kate Argent breaking into the house for a third, or was it fourth, time to harass her. 'Come at me bro,' she thought and hoped she would just so she could scream bloody murder for the deputy who was probably parked down the street.

When her dad got home they hugged fiercely for a few minutes and then Stiles pushed him away, "I would like to file charges against Katherine Argent for kidnapping. And also you should start investigating her for possible arson charges relating to the Hale house fire."

Her father nodded and they headed down to the station.

Derek and Scott waited until Stiles had pulled away in the police cruiser and then they retreated further into the woods. When Derek shared his plan Scott wasn't happy but they didn't have much time to think of anything better so he agreed to it. He realized that was probably why Stiles hadn't asked for any details, she was probably trusting Scott to mitigate whatever parts of Derek's plan he could to keep Derek safe. Scott wasn't sure what he could do though.

Derek called Peter and told him that Stiles had recovered and showed them how to escape. He wanted to meet with Peter to talk about another way of capturing Kate. But they needed to meet somewhere that the Argents didn't have under surveillance, they needed to meet in the cave where Derek had lived as a wolf.

He met Peter at the highway pull off, he met him there in his wolf form. He wasn't sure why he was in that form but he was talking to Scott in the cave and then it was time to go and it just felt right to strip off his clothes and leave them behind. Scott didn't seem surprised but he was clearly pleased to see the wolf form again. He spent a while petting Derek which was undignified but felt good and gushing about how he was going to figure out how to do that himself because it was so cool. Derek licked his face but it was a 'sure you are' kind of condescending lick. Still, his tag was waving as he trotted off to meet his uncle.

As soon as he saw Peter Derek was grateful that he had thought to change. First, the form was a gift from his mother, of that Derek had no doubt. Whatever alpha power Peter had snatched from the Hale pack, however he had snatched it, he wasn't worthy of this gift, but Derek was. Second, Derek couldn't say anything stupid or give anything away with his face in this form –except to Stiles apparently. And third, werewolves were inherently graceful creatures but in this form Derek was more graceful than his uncle and he relished every step of their trip to the cave.

Once they arrived he had to change back so he could talk, which was a bummer. Derek pulled his clothes on as slowly as he could, this was all about buying time for Stiles to get Kate in custody before Peter got himself arrested. Finally he settled against the far wall and pulled his blanket close so he could twist his hands in it. "Stiles is going to press charges against Kate Argent and get her arrested for kidnapping. I think we can also charge her with starting the fire. She'll be locked up for a long time and the rest of the Argent family won't be able to do anything about it."

"Yes they can, they can take retribution against us for that just as easily as they can take retribution for us killing Kate."

"Maybe but if word gets out to other hunters that she kidnapped the human daughter of a local sheriff and risked revealing everything, the family will lose power."

"We can't be sure of that Derek, and once she's in jail we won't be able to get her."

"I know Peter, but this is the safer thing to do for us."

"What us Derek? You and Scott? Is this because Scott still wants to bang that Argent girl? Surely you have told him by now about the dangers of fraternizing with the enemy?"

Derek didn't respond which only enraged Peter more. "Surely you have realized by now Derek that you are as much to blame for the pack dying as anyone else. I am an alpha, I can make more pack, I don't need you. I could kill you for what you did, I could kill you for keeping me here. I could kill Scott too, and little Miss Stiles. I will kill everyone and everything, I will let you all burn too."

"That's what we figured," said Derek as Scott, who was up the slope from the cave and listening, heard enough and set loose the rockslide he and Derek had prepared. Tons and tons of rocks rained down and sealed Derek and Peter into the cave.

As soon as the slide ended Scott was scrambling down to see what he had done, "Derek," he yelled, "Derek are you okay?"

There was a soft noise and Scott froze, plastering his body to the rocks so he could hear better, finally, faintly, he heard barking. It was the sweetest sound ever and he started to dig the cave out again.

Scott dug furiously and soon enough he heard scratching from the other side and eventually the hole was big enough that a long snout could shove itself through. Scott laughed out loud in relief. He only had to make the hole a little bit larger before all of Mr. Wolf had wriggled through. "Go back in and get your clothes," he insisted. "I'm not talking to you naked."

That got him a snarl but Derek dutifully went back in the hole and handed out his clothes before scrambling out again. Scott didn't say a word until Derek was dressed again and then he asked about Peter.

"He's alive, he's buried a bit but I'm sure he can dig himself out. I'll come back and check on him later, let's go see if Stiles is okay now."

"Sounds good," said Scott although he was really nervous about accidentally killing Peter.

"You didn't kill him, trust me. We're crazy resilient."

Scott tried to smile and nod but failed. He only cheered up when Derek got him to transform and race him to Stiles' house. Once they got close Derek vaulted the fence into her backyard and scampered up the tree to her bedroom window. Scott stopped him with a hand on his arm before he reached for the casing, "do I want to know how you learned to do this?"

Derek paused to look embarrassed but only for a moment before soundlessly easing her window open and slipping into the dark room. Stiles was in her bed, they could see a flash of white against the covers that was the new clean dressing on her wrist. Scott slipped in behind him and together they approached the bed.

Scott was startled when he saw the time on her electric clock. "Shit, it's after 10:00, I sent my mother a bunch of texts but I have to get home."

He took another step towards the bed but he didn't know what he wanted to do, tuck her in? Sniff her? In the end he decided to just go home, but not before he paused at the window, "don't be too creepy Derek," he admonished before he disappeared.

Derek froze and thought about what constituted too creepy, and then for the twentieth time that day, or so it felt to him, he carefully stripped off his clothes and bundled them into a little ball that he stuffed under Stiles' bed. Then he transformed into his wolf form and bounded up on the bed. There's nothing creepy about sleeping on the bed if you're a wolf he told himself.

That was the last thing he thought for a while because it was the end of a very long day, possibly two days depending on how you counted. Derek hadn't really slept at all in the cell, as if that was even an option in a cell with Stiles wounded most of the time. But now she was safe, and he was safe, and the bed was soft and warm and that was more than enough to send him to sleep.

He woke up to a face right in his face, which is a stupid thing to do. He could have bitten her, he hoped his unimpressed and slighty panicked expression shared that feeling. It apparently didn't though because Stiles laughed and beeped his nose. Giant fearsome wolf here, he tried to tell her but she started scratching behind his ears so he decided to screw it and just tried to keep himself from rolling over and waving his genitals around her room.

"Okay," Stiles said thumping him, "now that you're awake it's time for you to shower. My dad is already at the station and I'm making a huge breakfast. Be downstairs in twenty minutes Mr. Wolf, but not you know as Mr. Wolf because I'm making pancakes."

She left the room and Derek pulled out his bundle of clothes and found his way to the bathroom. The shower felt glorious.

Stiles received a steady series of text messages from either her father or her spies at the station during breakfast. Kate Argent was arrested, they found a key on her key ring that fit the Stilinski house and her dad almost had a coronary. They also found that the video camera outside the cell fed to her laptop, all the footage was gone but the tech guys were going to see what they could recover. Motive was sort of tricky but Stiles managed to stay quiet until someone decided that it was because Kate had dated Derek and Stiles was dating Derek now. Everyone liked that theory so she let them keep it. And of course it triggered a fresh investigation into the Hale fire and Stiles was beside herself with joy and happiness when her old chemistry teacher was arrested, "that douche was my nemesis she gloated."

Scott texted to say that Allison didn't hate him but she was upset because her aunt was arrested. Which was kind of understandable, except maybe she should be more upset that her aunt was a psychopath instead of that she was arrested for being a psychopath. "Potatoes, potatoes," said Stiles after she read the message to Derek and then she started cackling.

Derek quietly worried about post traumatic stress for a while but eventually she calmed down. After he finished eating, and before the sheriff came home for lunch, Derek excused himself to go check on Peter.

Peter was still buried so Derek spent a while digging him out. When he finally reached him he pulled out a water bottle and woke his uncle up. Peter drank the water slowly and by the time he had finished the bottle he seemed okay.

"Did your delay work?" he finally asked, "is she in jail?"

"Yes," replied Derek and wished he could turn into a wolf. But he couldn't so he decided to try and explain. "She attacked Stiles, she attacked a sixteen year old human to try and get at us. That wasn't playing by the rules and all of the hunters had to see why we have rules. If we responded to that in the usual way then maybe they wouldn't have seen how crazy it was. This way the Argents and the other hunters will know, hopefully, maybe, that they can't just go after emissaries or in-laws or anyone we happen to care about. The risks of letting her actions go were too great, the escalation…"

"I understand Derek. And now that it's too late to do it my way I guess I can admit that I see the wisdom of doing it your way."

"Did Deaton advise you to have her arrested?"

"No, Deaton advised us to stay in the cell and let you and Kate kill each other."

"You went against the advice of the emissary?" asked Peter, kind of impressed.

"Deaton was my mother's emissary, he isn't mine," growled Derek.

"Who is yours?" asked Peter.

"I'm not an alpha Peter, I guess I don't have one."

"I'm not too sure about that," said Peter. He was able to stand up now and was dusting himself off.

"I have noticed one thing though, you don't have an alpha do you? And Scott doesn't either." Derek wanted to look away but he forced himself to look Peter right in the eye.

"You're right, we don't."

"So what do you want to do now?" asked Peter after a long pause of more water drinking and some looking at the view.

"People keep asking me that," complained Derek, "I don't really know. A month ago I was perfectly happy as a wolf and barely even remembered that I was anything else."

"You need time to get used to being human, to catch up on what the world has been doing."

"I expect you need that time too," Derek replied. "There's Laura's loft, we can share it and try to catch up together."

"Oh, it's very decent of you to offer Derek but your pack is small, and rather tempting to me, I think it might be best if I moseyed along."

Derek looked down, he felt strangely hurt that Peter was leaving now.

"I appreciate what you have done for me though Derek. You woke me up and saved me from a possibly dangerous revenge. I owe you for that."

"Does that mean you'll keep in touch?" asked Derek.

"Oh yes, postcards and such," promised Peter.

"I would like that," Derek said, "you will always be my family."

"I'll do what I can to spread the word and keep other packs away too," continued Peter. "The thought of a pack from away taking over the Hale land is offensive to me. If there's ever a serious threat you must send for me."

"I will, the land is important, more important than anyone's pride."

"Exactly," agreed Peter and they clasped hands.

They went to Dr. Deaton's office together, Peter and Derek, because Peter would need money to fund his traveling and Derek wasn't sure how to set that up. Dr. Deaton was surprised to see them together, in broad daylight and relatively unscathed.

"Kate Argent was arrested yesterday for kidnapping Stiles," Derek announced instead of the traditional hello greeting.

"I see," said Deaton.

"I was detained at the time but I find myself satisfied with the outcome. Derek convinced me it was necessary to stop hunters from attacking humans in the future."

"Humans?" asked Deaton mysteriously. The Hales shared a long suffering look behind Deaton's back as he opened his gates and led them to his office.

There was an awkward moment when it looked like Peter might be taking Laura's Camaro but it turned out he was only teasing Derek, he wouldn't dream of separating them and also he was too old for that car. He found a much more expensive Audi for himself and was very happy to leave town in that.

Deaton made arrangements to pay for the car and handed Peter a few credit cards to tide him over. As they stood outside and watched him go Deaton turned to Derek and Derek knew what he was going to say.

"Right now," he interrupted, "I'm going to Stiles' house for dinner. She just invited me and they're having chicken."

"I guess it's a start," allowed Dr. Deaton but he still looked like he wanted to ask Derek what he was planning on doing with the rest of his life.

The chicken was a little dry but Derek enjoyed every bite. He did the dishes after and the sheriff spoke highly of both the local community college and the police academy. "I know that Stiles is going off somewhere, to some fancy competitive college, but we can keep each other company waiting for her to come back. I'm sure she'll be coming back."

"I think you're right about that sir, she seems uncommonly connected to the woods around here."

"Maybe not just the woods Derek, although, have you seen her wolf wall? That is some creepy shit she has up there."

"I thought it was sweet sir."

The sheriff looked at him skeptically, "oh son, you have it bad don't you?"

Finally there was a quiet day when Stiles texted Derek and requested an escort back to her field site. She picked him up at the loft and drove them in her Jeep to the pull off. Derek held her hand and helped her over roots and rocks on the way to the tree.

The sight of the tree made them both pause as they remembered the bullets exploding around them that day. The gouge in the bark was ugly but the tree seemed to be healing underneath.

"I feel so bad for how much I damaged this place," sighed Stiles as she looked at the big muddy streak from her mud slide and all the branches still clogging up the brook.

"Damage happens," said Derek philosophically, "the world would be pretty terrible if nothing ever changed."

"Not all change is good," said Stiles.

"I didn't say it was, I just said that it kind of has to happen. You know like the way sequoias can't reseed unless there's a forest fire."

"Are you saying that our love is like a baby sequoia and this shit storm was a forest fire?" asked Stiles.

Derek heard Stiles say 'our love' and choked on air for a while. Stiles helpfully pounded his back and offered him some water.

"Even so," she continued, "I can't help but feel that getting my field site shot up and causing a land slide that sent half of it into the creek is going to have a detrimental effect on my AP Bio grade."

"We can fix it," offered Derek.

"How?" asked Stiles.

"We can pull all the dead branches out of the brook, find a place to burn them –safely. We can even reseed the mudslide area, plant flowers and more trees if you'd like."

It was an intriguing thought but when they tramped down to the brook they saw that dozens of little birds were using the branches for shelter and some wild morning glories were already growing over them.

"I don't think those are morning glories Stiles," said Derek from where he was spying on her notes, "I think that's deadly nightshade."

Stiles made him wade through the muck and get her flower and leaf samples so she could look it up at home. They gathered dozens of other samples from the new species that had moved in during the aftermath and Stiles chattered all the way home about how exciting it was and how documenting these changes was totally going to get her an A in AP Bio.


End file.
